


To love one another

by izlaria (mixthealphabet)



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Cassandra is a good sister, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Jason is a good brother, Mental Health Issues, Pre-New 52, Stephanie Brown-centric, Tim Drake-centric, damian is a good brother, tim is a good brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixthealphabet/pseuds/izlaria
Summary: Stephanie Brown didn't think she would ever see Tim Drake again. Three years apart and a heavy history could do that to any old relationship.Except when it came to the bats and their messed up dynamics, apparently.





	1. No goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to warn everyone that, though this is pre-new 52, I'll be adding New 52 characters like Duke Thomas and Harper Row. They won't be a big part of the plot, because I don't know much about them, but I like the idea of their characters and I hope to eventually read more issues in which they appear.
> 
> If you can, please leave some feedback!

_Yeah, I hurt you, and you hurt me. Yeah, we did some things that we can never take back. And we tried hard just to fix it, but we broke it more and so I guess some things are not meant to last. Is it too much to ask?_

Stephanie Brown had thought that gravity was really starting to like her.

They had a difficult history, she knew, but things had been better these past months. No slipping from rooftops into warehouses full of criminals, no falling to her never-quite-certain-death after being pushed out of windows.

For the first time in Stephanie’s life, that damned force seemed to have taken a liking to her.

And then her frisbee had lost its momentum too quickly, swerving to the right and hitting a guy in the middle of his forehead, just as he got off his motorcycle.

She heard gasps around her, probably from her friends, but all that Stephanie could muster was a grimace and acceptance.

Of course she had hurt one of the rich kids after a month in Harvard.

Of freaking course.

“Are you alright?” she asked, approaching the guy. There was something strangely familiar about his shoulders, but, in her defense, his hair was cut short and he had glasses on.

It had been ages since she’d last seen Tim Drake in glasses.

“Stephanie?” He fixed her with wide blue eyes. His forehead had wrinkled with disbelief, right where it was also red from the frisbee.

“Tim,” she breathed out in response, more shaken than she would have liked to appear.

She had not expected to find Tim Drake in Harvard, especially not after the last three years of radio-silence on his part. He had been going around Europe and Asia, training and studying, like he’d done when he first became Robin.

Or that’s what she’d thought.

“You know Wayne, Stephanie?” It was Alicia who had asked, but Mike was nodding over her shoulder, mouthing a “nice”.

She was very glad that Tim still seemed too dazed to notice their lack of subtlety.

He chuckled, picking up the frisbee.

“It’s Drake now, actually.” He smiled at the other two. “Also, Steph and I go way back. She’s unreasonably fond of hitting me in the face.”

Stephanie fought back her smile, taking the frisbee from him. “At least it wasn’t a brick, this time.”

Tim grinned, nodding once.

She had missed how easy-going he could be, how he took her barbs in stride, because he knew she didn’t mean harm by them. Their last encounters hadn’t been like this; he was hurting, then, and she was… She was expecting him to be the boy from her teenage years.

So much had happened since their time as Robin and Spoiler, it was difficult to reconcile everything.

There was a moment of silence in which Tim seemed content with just looking at her. Stephanie felt something fizz inside her chest with the softness of his gaze, and this, more than anything, was what made her clear her throat.

“I should probably get going.” She gestured towards Alicia and Mike, who were still staring at them unabashedly.

Tim nodded, a bit awkward in his movements. It was strange to read him so easily: the doubt in the wrinkles of his forehead, the understanding in the tilt of his lips.

As she gave her back to him, Stephanie found herself smiling at these changes.

He seemed happy.

“We could grab some coffee!” She turned at his outburst. Tim had yelled, attracting the attention of other students, and now he grimaced in embarrassment. “I mean…” He sighed, expression schooled into something more composed. “Would you like to have some coffee? We can even have waffles.”

Before Stephanie could respond, Alicia was throwing an arm around his shoulders. Her friend laughed, obviously overjoyed by the situation.

“Wow, he knows the way straight to your heart.”

“Yeah, well –” Stephanie frowned – “he did break it, so he has to at least know it.” Tim had the decency to look ashamed, but the expression on Alicia’s face was less of understanding and more of curiosity. There would be several questions waiting for Stephanie back at her dorm. Might as well put them off for as long as she could. “But coffee sounds nice.”

When she met Tim’s eyes, the surprise and gratitude she found there almost made her turn away. They had hurt each other so much, for so long, it was difficult to be in his presence again. He had meant a lot to her, once upon a time, but she knew very little about his life now.

How long had he been back? Why was he in Harvard, of all places? It felt like a very lousy joke, to meet him like this after so much time trying to shut down thoughts of them.

“Were you waiting for them to leave so you could escape?” Tim asked once they were alone. “Because I’ll understand if you did.”

She let him sidle up to her, but continued to stare at her friends’ retreating backs. “Do you think I don’t want to talk to you?”

“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. “I think you would have preferred if we never saw each other again.”

The self-deprecation in his tone caught her by surprise. While Tim had always been one for angst, she hadn’t known him to sound so defeated. It brought a strange taste to her mouth; like worry, but ten times worse, because she couldn’t just reach for his hand, couldn’t look for comfort in him.

“Why would you say that?”

“Come on, Steph,” he sighed. “You’ve avoided me for years.”

Tim started towards one of the campus’ coffee shops and Stephanie glared at the back of his head, before hurrying to accompany him. She had forgotten how infuriating he could be.

“I haven’t known where you’ve been for years!” She huffed in outrage.

He glanced her way. “Back when I first became RR?”

“You were avoiding me!” She punched his arm, making Tim flinch as he opened the door for her. “I visited you as BG and you kicked me in the gut.”

He frowned.

“That’s unfair. I didn’t know it was you.” He paused as the waiter joined them, asking for their orders. “If I remember correctly, you didn’t even wait a week before you punched me in the face, after that.”

Stephanie didn’t try to stop her smile. That whole situation was still pretty funny. “Not on purpose.”

“That’s what you always say, but I’m the one left with the scars.” Tim smiled, clearly amused by the affront in her tone. Their waiter approached with two steaming mugs, and Tim smiled at him as well.

“That’s one scar, you big baby!” she huffed, drawing Tim’s attention back to her. “You said you liked how it made you look older!”

Tim chuckled. “What? You wanted me to leave my girlfriend feeling bad for using me as target practice?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Target practice? You were the one trying to distract me during freaking _patrol_ ,” she whispered back. Stephanie could tell from his smile that he knew she wasn’t really angry and she found it exciting, to see that look on him again. “ _B. was right there!_ ”

Tim took a sip of his drink. She’d meant to make him laugh, but he didn’t. His mouth did quirk up, however, with a fondness she had forgotten to expect.

They were leaning over the table, and the fumes from Tim’s hot coffee fogged up his glasses. It made her realize that, for some reason, they had been scooting closer.

“We are dangerous,” he remarked, and she knew exactly what he meant.

Their relationship was too easy to fall back on. It was the kind of attraction that came from years together, from fighting side by side, but also with each other.

She had missed him, and that was dangerous too.

“Why are you here, Tim?”

He shrugged. “I’m trying a different approach to the business and Dick needed someone here to keep an eye on Damian as he trains. The brat is over in Boston, allegedly learning from some business moguls, but I think Bruce just wanted a vacation.”

“Different approach? And Damian? Wow, things have changed since we last talked.” She grinned, unable to stop the playfulness from slipping into her voice.

This time, Tim did laugh.

“Not really. It was never supposed to be forever, not for me.” Stephanie wondered if he meant to sound sheepish, or if he was slowly unlearning how guarded he’d been under Bruce’s tutelage.

“I thought you were going to be the next B.,” she said, not mockingly enough for it to sound like a joke.

“Yeah…” He grimaced. “Those were dark times.”

Stephanie threw her head back, laughing. “Were they ever!”

“I never meant to hurt you, then.”

She looked back at Tim, still unsure on how to react to how honest he was being. She had almost forgotten how bright his eyes were, and how sincere they could make him look.

Even without it, he had been an expert at gaining people’s trust. It was in the voice, Stephanie supposed, or in the gentleness of his movements. It wasn’t something Bruce could train into him. Tim simply paid attention to people, he cared for them, and it showed.

“I know. I was just collateral damage.” She smiled into her hot chocolate, and the effort made her cheeks hurt. “But it hurt that I was so far out of your focus that you didn’t even realize how terrible you were being.”

From over her mug, she saw his expression close off. There it was, the blankness he had come to adopt when outside of the cape, when he was trying to keep his emotions in check.

Stephanie hadn’t meant to upset him, but she hadn’t wanted to lie or hold back again.

“Wait,” she exclaimed, deciding to change the subject, “you said Dick knew you were here?”

Tim blinked in confusion. “Yeah…?”

“I’ll kill him. He knew I was in town. He and Barbara even helped me move!”

He shook his head in amusement. “That does sound like Dick, but he just wanted me in Boston, not in Harvard. I…” He hesitated. “I’ve actually been here for some time now, in MIT.”

Stephanie blinked at him, not knowing how to take this. From what she had heard, Dick thought Tim was in Ukraine, or something. She hadn’t expected him to give college a try. That was something he had wanted when younger, before losing Jack. Before becoming Red Robin.

“I thought for sure you would be in Harvard. B was a major jerk about me coming here, wouldn’t let me go near John Hopkin’s.” She still couldn’t understand the man’s aversion to that school. “Wait, MIT? That’s on the other side of the river. Why were you at the park?”

Tim shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee.

“I was meeting Ives and some of his friends for lunch,” he frowned at his cellphone, which had been sitting silently beside his drink. “They are being unusually quiet about being stood up.”

“God, Ives.” Stephanie chuckled. “It’s been so long since I last saw him. Is he alright?”

“He’s fine.” Tim scoffed. “More than fine. He’s getting his Master’s at MIT, and he loves to lord it over me.” He leaned over the table, closer to her. “He was a TA in one of my classes and, I swear, every assignment had a variation of my name written into it. It was like he wanted the other students to hate me.”

Stephanie grinned. It was just like those two to make homework into some kind of fight.

“Is that how you ended up here? Ives?”

“Sort of.” Tim pulled his drink out of the way as their waiter came back, a tray of waffles and eggs in hand. “I had to take some time off and he was the only person I knew who I hadn’t already…” He trailed off, face contorting in uncertainty as he inspected the spread of breakfast food.

“Alienated?” she suggested, grabbing onto the jar of syrup before Tim could take it.

He glared at her, to which Stephanie responded by sticking her tongue out.

“Yeah, alienated. Kon, Bart and Cassie were there for me, but I wanted someone who had no idea what was going on.” He swallowed a forkful of his scrambled eggs. “Ives thought it was all about dad and Dana. It felt nice –” he paused to look at her – “to feel normal.”

Stephanie wondered if there was any hidden meaning in that look, if she had been his slice of normalcy, once. In spite of the capes and the secrecy, the time they spent together had allowed them the movie nights and birthday parties that being a vigilante sometimes denied them.

After her pregnancy and the situation with her father, Tim had been there. He had gone through the Lamaze classes and the mornings on her couch, when she had questioned her choices. He used to draw circles across her back, soothing her worries.

The memories made it difficult for Stephanie to remember why she had walked out of his life.

She took a bite of her syrup-soaked waffles and watched as Tim drowned his bacon in honey. “Cass is a really bad influence, hm?”

Tim nodded. “I’ve never met anyone who is so fond of sugar, except maybe Dick.”

“Your family passes on the weirdest habits.” She snickered. “Nightly escapades, unnatural consumption of sweets, a fondness of scowling.”

“Don’t forget the incapacity to communicate outside of code.”

“Oh, yes,” she sighed dramatically, “how could I forget that?”

Across from her, Tim raised a hand to his mouth, hiding his smile, and Stephanie couldn’t help a grin of her own.

“It’s almost like we are an unhealthy bunch.” He pointed his fork at her. “Is that what you are insinuating, Miss Brown?”

“I’m not insinuating anything, Mister Drake,” she laughed out, waving a hand at him dismissively. “It’s good to know that you still talk to Cass, though.”

“Yeah…” His smile wavered, but Tim didn’t give her a chance to question it. “I spent some time with her in Hong Kong, before she decided to come back, and I picked up on some of her habits.”

She had known Tim had been in Hong Kong. It was the only destination he had given Dick before leaving Gotham. Something about his expression, however, didn’t sit right with Stephanie. He seemed more closed off, like there was something he didn’t want her to know about his visit to Cass.

“I want you to know that I’m only letting this go because it’s my day off and I don’t want to go detective on your ass.” Tim shifted in his seat, but didn’t say anything. “Ok, MIT. Tell me about it.”

Curiosity burned in her, but Stephanie knew from the relief in Tim’s face that she had made the right choice.

“It’s pretty great. I’ve just finished my bachelor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and now I’m moving onto my Master’s. I’ve been thinking about going into Law once I’m done with it. Get back to the family business, in one way or the other.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Harvard Law, right?” She groaned when Tim smiled his assent. “You’re such a freaking overachiever.”

“Says the girl who is in Harvard Med.”

“Yeah, but the prep kinda crushed me.” She shrugged, a little unsettled by the pride in Tim’s expression. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Stop looking at me like that. You’re gonna make me blush.”

He looked down at his plate. “I’m just happy for you, Steph.”

“Yeah, and I clearly can’t handle it right now,” she joked, attempting to distract herself from how fond Tim sounded.

It was his turn to shrug. “You seem to have settled in well. The people you were with were pretty nosy, so I’m assuming you guys are close?”

So he had noticed. Stephanie felt that there was very little Tim didn’t notice, even now.

“They mean well, but you’re a bit famous, you know?” She drained the rest of her hot chocolate. “I’ll talk to them about it.”

“I don’t mind,” he assured her. “I’ve been dealing with it since before Bruce. Let’s just be glad Dick wasn’t there. We both know how overbearing he can get when trying to avoid awkwardness.”

Tim pretended to shudder, and Stephanie grinned.

“Nothing like good intentions to make things that much worse,” she agreed.

“Do you remember when he found out we were dating?” Tim ran a hand through his face, remembering to avoid the glasses. “Those puns ruined the last of my innocence.”

“What innocence?” she scoffed. “You forget I’ve seen your browser history, dork ex-wonder.”

Tim made a face at her, but, before he could say anything, their waiter was back to top off his coffee.

“Anything else I can get you?” the man asked, and white, perfect teeth peaked from behind his upturned lips. Stephanie felt something unpleasant bubble up in her chest at the way he kept his eyes on Tim.

But Tim simply turned back to her, “Are you thinking strawberry tart or chocolate cake, today?” He hmmed. “I guess we’re skipping lunch and going straight to dessert.”

She picked up the menu, deciding not to ask the waiter for his number on Tim’s behalf. It was something she did for her friends, when they didn’t pick up on it themselves, but Tim wasn’t really her friend.

Stephanie was thinking about chocolate cake and about spending the afternoon with a boy who she had hated, once.

“I used to eat mashed potatoes for breakfast while you devoured an entire pineapple pizza.” She tapped a finger against the menu. “We’ve done worse.”

“Used to,” he pointed out, but there was resignation in his voice. “Chocolate _and_ strawberry it is, then,” he told their waiter, and his smile, when Tim looked at her, was almost distractingly charming. “We might as well go all out.”

“It’s almost like he’s trying to get back on my good graces,” she fake-whispered to the waiter, who let out an awkward chuckle as he left.

“Well,” Tim raised his eyebrows at her, “is it working?”

“To be determined.” Stephanie crossed her arms over her chest. “After a plate of chocolate cake.”

The boy shook his head, still fighting his amusement. It was a familiar scene: the dinner, the smell of grease and coffee and their favorite comfort foods. That smile.

Tim’s cell phone started vibrating against the tabletop, and there was a familiarity to this, too. Their dates never lasted, even when they were younger.

“Ives, hi!”

She waved a hand at Tim, more annoyed at the panic on his face than at the interruption. If there was something she disliked, it was being a secret or a bother. She was the girl who took up his time, when Tim was supposed to be somewhere else.

Stephanie Brown: once again, not the priority.

“Just go without me,” he mumbled into the phone. “I’m with someone right now.” He paused. “Yes, someone you know.” Tim raised his eyes to meet hers in a mix of exasperation and confusion. “How did you know I was with Steph?”

There was a knock on the window to their right, where Ives had pressed himself against the glass. The blonde waved at them, looking as skinny and enthusiastic as Stephanie remembered.

She waved back as Tim groaned.

“No, you can’t come –” but Ives had already left the window and made his way towards the entrance, and a small group of students followed him in.

“Stephanie Brown, as I live and breathe!”

He ducked down to hug her and Stephanie allowed it. While they had never been close, he and Tim had been best friends and that meant they’d spent a lot of time around one another.

“Sebastian Ives,” she called back, laughing. “What are you doing here?”

He looked a lot better, even if his hair was somewhat long. Tim had told her once that Ives hated being bald because of the chemo and that he had promised to go full Rapunzel when the treatment was over.

Stephanie hoped he had gotten around to it. He was a good kid.

“I came to get my best friend back, since he promised me we would go watch The Last Jedi.” Ives nudged Tim’s leg with his foot, but Tim didn’t move. “My man, you know I would leave you alone any other time, but this is Star Wars.”

Tim glared at him. “You could have bought the tickets to move it along. You just wanted everyone to see what I was doing.”

“Can you blame him?” Another boy stepped forward. He was taller than Ives, with dark skin and kind eyes. The lines on Tim’s forehead softened at the sight of him, and Stephanie’s stomach lurched. “Everyone wants to know Tim Drake’s dark past.”

“Not exactly dark.” Ives snickered.

“Not exactly in the past,” a girl chimed in, giving both Tim and the other boy a pointed look.

“Ok, ok, shut up.” Tim had raised his hands to his face and, when they came down, his glasses were lopsided. “Steph, these are Kyle and Jiahui. The one in glasses is Debora and the other one is Gabe.” He stopped Jiahui from stealing his coffee. “Guys, this is Steph.”

“Tim’s told us about you,” the girl – Jiahui – commented. Her tone was too sharp to be casual, but Stephanie didn’t think she meant to sound rude. She just took up space, with her long hair, her height, and the weight of her eyes.

Stephanie rested her chin on her hands, trying to seem put-together, despite her grass-stained jeans. “Only good things, I hope?” She raised her eyebrows at Tim, waiting for an answer.

“Of course.” He smiled, but it was a little sad. “Only the best.”

She felt the gaze of the group on them, but they didn’t add to Tim’s statement.

“Should I move you to a bigger booth?” The waiter had come back with their orders, looking at the seven with a degree of uncertainty.

Tim shook his head. “No, they are leaving,” he said, receiving a chorus of disapproval from his friends. “Ives, go buy the tickets. I’ll get there in time. Kyle, Deb, one of you should take Jiahui away before I start calling _her_ exes.”

Debora latched onto Jiahui’s arm. “No need to get violent, you two.” She winked at Tim, dragging the larger girl with her, even as Jiahui turned around to give Tim the finger.

Kyle sighed. “You two are the worst.” He leaned down towards Tim, adjusting his glasses. “See you soon, ok?”

Ives watched him leave before turning to Tim. They looked at each other for a moment and, though they didn’t seem mad, there was a strange hardness to their eyes.

“The movie starts in twenty,” Ives said, finally. “It was nice to see you, Steph. Sorry it was so hurried.”

He gave her one final hug, and then he left.

She ate her cake, waiting to see what Tim would say. He was stalling, she could tell, but Stephanie couldn’t see the reason behind his sudden sullenness.

“If you want to go, you can go.” She picked at the frosting. “I won’t be mad. I know you had plans.”

When she looked up, Tim was staring at her.

“It’s more the opposite, really.” He tried to smile, but it looked forced. “I’d rather stay.”

_Then stay._

She almost said it, too. It was on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn’t right. Ives was clearly already a little irritated. She meant nothing to Tim now, which made this little outing a nice surprise, but not enough of a reason to get in trouble with his friends.

Tim pushed his plate towards her, where half of a strawberry tart still sat. Stephanie glanced down, noticing her own plate was empty of everything but the white chocolate frosting.

She had never liked white chocolate, for the same reasons she disliked skim milk and hot chocolate that had been made with water. It was a good thing in its original form, but then people had messed it up. The fact that Tim remembered made her want to eat the entire thing out of spite.

But she accepted the plate, pushing hers towards him.

“I would like to see you again, if that’s okay with you.”

Stephanie’s eyes snapped up. There he went, again, challenging what she had been expecting him to do.

“God, ex-wonder,” she joked, “when did you get your conscience back?”

Tim pretended to consider this, allowing her the diversion. Stephanie didn’t know if he was letting her hide behind humor or if he was the one hiding. She supposed they had been honest enough for one day.

“Around the time when I stopped sleeping through the day and started having real human interaction?”

That got an actual laugh out of her. “Ha! That sounds about right!”

“So, same time next week?” He sounded so doubtful, like he didn’t actually believe she would say yes.

“I’m guessing you already have my number?” Tim’s smirk was enough of an answer, just the right kind of smug. Stephanie put down some bills, getting up. “Same time next week. Text me the address.”

Tim stood up too.

“It was really nice seeing you, Steph.”

She took a deep breath and kept smiling, even though her chest had grown tight.

“It was really nice seeing you, Tim. Now go!” She waved her hands towards the door. “Go meet your friends! Go satiate your thirst for princess Leia.”

Tim ran a hand through his face, chuckling. Then, he put his arms around her.

“You know you’re thirsty for her, too,” he mumbled into the crook of her neck.

Once outside the dinner, Stephanie did not turn to see him go. She figured she had enough experience with it to last a lifetime or two.

* * *

Alicia was on her feet before Stephanie could take one step into their dorm.

The girl scrambled forward, crowding her against the door. “Tim Wayne is your ex?”

Stephanie suppressed a sigh. She liked Alicia, but a month wasn’t really enough time for her to accept such blatant intrusion. Even if her intentions weren’t to sell the story to some tabloid, the subject still carried a soreness that left Stephanie unwilling to share it.

Alicia must have realized how forceful she had sounded, because she backed up a little, letting her roommate drop onto the bed.

“Yes,” Stephanie answered in her best Batwoman impression, all monotone and ice. “And it’s Tim Drake.”

The other raised an eyebrow at her, kneeling on the bed at her side. It was one of the things that Stephanie envied about her, the expressiveness of her features and how it always got her out of trouble.

It was difficult to stay mad at Alicia when she looked so despondent.

“C’mon,” she pleaded, shaking her head in a way that gave Stephanie a mouthful of curls. It made her laugh, despite how annoyed she felt.

“Stop, oh my god.”

Alicia sat down and held her hands up. “Ok,” she stated, “ok. I’m not asking for the dirt on him, just…” She waved her hands in the air. “Gimme something. How did you guys even meet? You can’t possibly ask me to believe you just tripped onto each other.”

Stephanie glared at her, but she knew it wouldn’t be very effective.

“I’m from Gotham, he’s from Gotham. Fate is just funny when it comes to us.” She pondered whether or not to continue. “The first time we met, I threw a brick at his face. I think you can fill in the blanks from what you saw today.”

Her friend snorted in amusement.

“You Gotham types are so weird.” She dropped her hands to look at Stephanie with more attention. “You really won’t tell me anything?”

Stephanie shook her head.

She didn’t really care if Alicia believed her or not. It would have been nice to have someone she could talk about the whole thing, an outside view, but their lives were secrets wrapped in secrets. She could understand why Tim had wanted something normal.

She couldn’t remember if there was anyone who actually knew the whole story. Barbara and Dick had been there for most of it, and Cass, of course, had picked up on it from what others said and how they acted. Stephanie remembered telling Kara, but not everything.

“Fiiiine,” Alicia threw her head back, dragging her vowels. “Will you tell me about coffee, though?”

Stephanie wondered if that would be okay.

As far as she knew, Tim was still a very private person, who deeply disliked having others make guesses at his life. She could still recall the whole Tam incident and the media circus that had followed once the two of them started working together, despite denying the engagement.

She wanted to trust Alicia, but she barely knew the girl.

“It was fine.” Stephanie shrugged. “He is a nice person, but he wasn’t begging me to go back to him or anything like that. Before we got together, we were friends, so maybe he wants that again.”

Alicia remained unsatisfied.

“Lemme get this right,” she started. “You know one of the richest guys in the United States, the heir to both Drake Industries and part of the Wayne fortune,” she paused, dramatic as she was, “and you’re not gonna hit that?”

Stephanie glared at her. “Why are you so interested, anyway?”

Her friend did a little bounce on the bed.

“Look, I’m just trying to figure you out.” She put her arm around Stephanie, like she’d done with Tim earlier. “You are supposed to be the older one, leading me through the paths of life. So go, get the experiences.” She paused again, suddenly serious. “Get that booty.”

Stephanie frowned at her. “Wait. Do you want to learn from my mistakes or live vicariously through me?”

Alicia continued to stare at her, a strange intensity to her eyes as she whispered, “both.”

Stephanie pushed her off the bed. From the floor, the girl simply continued to laugh.

“God, why are all of my friends assholes?”

“It takes one to know one,” Alicia replied, winking at her.

“Please tell me Mike won’t be as much of a pain in the ass.”

“Pff,” the other rolled her eyes. “Mike’s already planning your future wedding. The guy wouldn’t shut up about the sparkle in Drake’s eyes when he realized it was you.”

Stephanie buried her face into a pillow, letting Alicia’s laughter fill the room.

For a moment, that’s all they did. It wasn’t yet comfortable, but it could grow into familiarity and that was all that Stephanie could ask for, for now. She was glad her mother had insisted on the dorm situation, though it wasn’t difficult to imagine why Crystal Brown had wanted a second person sharing her space.

Her nighttime activities were _not_ easily explained.

“So, you know the Waynes.” Alicia had finished laughing and was now sitting against her mattress. “Not to sound snobbish, but that was probably a great boost in your application.”

Stephanie turned to face the ceiling. “Yeah…” she trailed off.

She could remember how happy her mother had been when she told her about applying to med school, but Gotham U was not Ivy League material and only a small miracle would get her into a place like John Hopkin’s. Which is where Barbara had come in.

With the help of Doctor Thompkins, Dick and Alfred, they had come up with some pretty amazing letters of recommendation, as well as a certificate from her time in Africa. Cass, Jason and Duke had helped where they could, and even Damian had been supportive.

And Bruce. Bruce had insisted on Harvard, because Barbara was an alumni and for whichever statistics he had thrown at her.

She hadn’t thought much of it then, but if Bruce knew Tim was at MIT this whole time, it would make a lot more sense.

“How’s Bruce Wayne?” Alicia asked, still looking giggly.

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at the ceiling.

“He’s a manipulative asshole,” she snapped. Then, feeling it was unfair of her to be so categorical, she added, “with good intentions. Possibly.”

They fell into silence, each lost to their own thoughts.

Stephanie imagined calling Bruce and asking about it, whether he had wanted her to see Tim again and, if so, why. The two had been a catastrophe, a freaking forest fire. Every time they thought the worst had passed, there was a new outbreak, until all that was left was ash.

Sometimes, she couldn’t even tell if they had actually broken up, or if they had just become ghosts in each other’s lives, absent even when they were right there. She remembered missing him, despite the fact that he was usually sitting five feet from her, in his work station at the cave.

“Steph?” Alicia was whispering, and Stephanie realized she had been dozing off. She didn’t open her eyes, but hummed to let the other know she was listening. “What was it like, dating Drake?”

Stephanie didn’t respond immediately. She rolled the question in the back of her mind.

“It was like –” she breathed in – “it was like waking up from a nightmare. Then finding that reality could hurt the same.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, each chapter will have a song. This one is No goodbyes, by Dua Lipa.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at hestialied, if you want to discuss the batfam!


	2. Tell me you love me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The number of bats in Boston goes from one to five, and Stephanie doesn't know how to handle it.
> 
> Still, it's kinda nice, to be around Tim.

_Bad at love, no, I’m not good at this, but I can’t say I’m innocent. Not hardly, but I’m sorry._

Stephanie woke up the next day with a crick in her neck and it took her a moment to remember why.

As if the tension of her morning with Tim hadn’t been enough, her molecular bio paper had taken most of the afternoon, much to Alicia’s amusement. Her roommate seemed to find joy in the color-coded mess of Stephanie’s desk, despite her increasingly louder complaints over not wanting any of the “it’s-fucking-purple” post-its on her side of the room.

The phone at her bedside table gave no sign of life, and Stephanie was thankful for small miracles. Her mother would be calling at some point, Alfred too, probably, but she didn’t yet have the energy to deal with either telling them about Tim or lying and facing the consequences in the future.

It wasn’t that she thought they would react badly to it.

Crystal hadn’t always liked the boy, especially with how he had enabled her daughter’s attempt at vigilantism, but she’d come around to him. Tim was certainly charming when he wanted to, and it didn’t hurt that he had helped Stephanie through her pregnancy. Crystal was fond of him, although distant in her affection.

Alfred, on the other hand, would be quietly ecstatic. He had never hidden his approval of Tim and Stephanie’s relationship, which had once meant a lot to her. The Waynes could be a difficult brand of suspicious, but the clear support of their butler had eased their attitude towards Stephanie, at times. He had been kind, even when she had been wrong in how she treated Tim, susceptible to Bruce as she had been.

She didn’t want his joy, though.

Things already felt heavy between Tim and her without adding the opinion of those who actually knew them and their history. It was probably why Tim hadn’t wanted Ives to find them. It was unlikely that the guy knew the details of it, but he had seen their avoidance when in school, had been there for the missed calls and the longing gazes.

Ugh, teenage angst. She had not missed this.

The dorm door flew open, smacking against the side of the wardrobe, and Stephanie raised her eyes to see Alicia with a leg out, coffee and paper bags in her arms.

“I bring a peace offering!” the girl announced with a grin that was both friendly and a bit crazed.

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at her.

“You’re lucky I was already awake.” Alicia blew a raspberry at her. “Oh, yeah? You better have chocolate in there somewhere.”

The girl pushed the cup holder into Stephanie’s hands, then proceeded to arrange their breakfast on the coffee table they had crammed between their beds. Blueberry pancakes from down the block, chocolate covered waffles, eggs and bacon, and the sweet-potato hash browns that the two of them had become obsessed with.

“Ta-da!” Alicia waved at the spread, receiving an evaluating look from Stephanie.

“This is no peace offering,” the blonde protested. “This is a bribe. What do you want?”

Again, while a month had not been enough for the two to truly know each other, it hadn’t taken long for Stephanie to categorize most of Alicia’s tells. It helped that the girl was no vigilante; she wore her emotions on her sleeves, on her face, even on her clothes sometimes. She had opened up about her time in college, before continuing on to Harvard, without any carefulness.

It was a bit overwhelming.

“You gotta tell me something about your High School years,” Alicia answered promptly. “Or no chocolate-covered waffles for you.” At Stephanie’s grimace, the other draped herself across the table, looking up at her with big, dark eyes. “Pleeease? I’ve told you everything.”

The truth was that Stephanie didn’t know where to begin. It wasn’t in her nature to be secretive, but the media scandals that had arisen since her acceptance into the Wayne family circuit made her a bit tongue-tied.

For years, the others had been lying to protect her identity. It had gotten better after Tim left Gotham, because his emancipation and the following promotion to WE CEO had been the media’s main focus, but they remained on Vicky Vale’s radar, despite their best efforts.

Stephanie could never say something that would hurt them.

“Fine,” she acquiesced. “A bit more general than High School, though. My father was a villain. He was always a criminal, but this was him trying to reach the big leagues.” She took one of the coffees, ignoring how wide-eyed Alicia had gotten. “It was around the time I met Tim, and he really helped me get through it. He wasn’t a Wayne, then, but he was already friends with Dick. That family is super weird, but nice when it counts, I guess. I’m actually still close friends with their sister.”

Alicia took a moment to just look at her.

“Does it piss you off that I’m glad you told me?” she asked, grabbing the paper plates from under the table. Stephanie busied herself with piling the pancakes and waffles into one of them.

“A little, but I’m a little pissed off in general right now.” She threw her head back with a groan. “And mom is gonna call, ‘cause it’s Sunday, but I don’t wanna tell her about Tim.”

Alicia snickered. “You had to deal with a criminal dad, but you’re worried about your mom finding out you saw your ex?”

“I’m not worried.” Stephanie let her head rest against the bed. “Mom liked Tim and all, but we got so messed up. Sure, we were good to each other. Until we weren’t.”

Her friend swallowed a mouthful of hash browns. “Isn’t that just life?”

Stephanie wanted to agree and be done with it, but she knew there was more than just life to what had happened. He had been a jerk, but so had she, and the two of them had let others dictate how their relationship progressed. Bruce, especially.

“I was such a screw up when younger, Ali. You wouldn’t believe the choices I made.” Not just regarding Tim, but she had been impulsive as Spoiler and untrained. It was an explosive combination that had led to heartbreak and a year away from home. Stephanie didn’t know if her mother could ever truly forgive her for all that suffering.

But Alicia, not knowing about this, just shrugged. “You’re making me super curious about the whole thing, but whatever. The point is that you’re here now. I don’t know much about being young and stupid,” and here she pretended to flip her hair, “I was always pretty focused on school and such, but I think you’re doing fine. You’re in Harvard, for fuck’s sake.”

Stephanie huffed a laugh, unable to stop herself.

“Thank you,” she said, taking a bite of the pancakes, “I needed that.”

Alicia grinned. It was genuine and, again, so wide that it looked crazed. Stephanie thought it was the kind of expression one saw on children, or on people like Cass and Damian, who got surprised by their own joy.

The girl glanced up at her, scrunching up her eyebrows in confusion. “What is it?”

Stephanie shook her head. “Nothing, I was just thinking that Cass would probably like you.” She clicked her tongue. “And that Damian, the younger Wayne, would _not_.”

Alicia made an outraged sound, smiling.

“I’m very likeable!” She was shredding her hash browns as she said this, mixing them with the eggs and bacon, then with the syrup. It was the kind of thing that Dick had taught Cass to do and that never failed to disgust Damian. “If someone doesn’t like me, then they have awful taste in people and I’m not obligated to put up with that.”

Stephanie nodded. “I wish I had been like that. Half of the people I’m close to nowadays are just people who got used to having me glued to their sides.”

She cringed at the thought of her earlier days as Spoiler. Not only had she been a bit forceful as she went after Tim, but it had set a pretty uncomfortable tone for the rest of her relationship with Bruce.

Time was a blessed thing, really. She had never been too proud to recognize her mistakes, but there were certain situations that only the years could have put into perspective.

Stephanie remembered being mad at Tim about Ariana, despite the fact that he had told her he couldn’t share aspects of his civilian life and that she had been the one to kiss him, to catch him off guard. Telling her he had a girlfriend wasn’t the same as telling her his identity, but she could understand it a bit better now, with the amount of secrets she currently held in her chest.

And, god, the whole situation with Scarab. She had allowed Bruce into her head and she had done his dirty work, disregarding how Tim felt and what it would be like for him outside of Robin. Their relationship had been on the mend until then, but things had gone completely askew after it.

Stephanie put her fork down on the table.

“Yesterday, I said that Tim broke my heart,” she waited as Alicia sipped her coffee, “but that’s not the whole truth. We sort of broke each other’s hearts. Over and over again.” She scoffed. “Can you believe that I don’t even remember breaking up? I remember not picking up the phone, then going after him, and the fights…”

Alicia opened her mouth, as if to say something, but Stephanie was not done.

“We spent months – months! – going around each other. We weren’t fighting anymore, but weren’t friends yet. And then he stopped appearing at the manor, which was just,” she made a choked sound, “I had to hear from his brothers that he’d left Gotham.”

Alicia frowned down at her plate. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That sounds awful. I didn’t mean to make you think about it.”

Stephanie gave her a tight smile. “It’s okay. It’s actually kinda nice. Most of my friends lived through it, so they have a lot of opinions, and they don’t usually let me get away with talking shit about Tim.” She leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes. “He’s a really great person when he’s not being a jerk.”

She felt Alicia take her hand and squeeze it. The gesture was comforting, but a far cry from the hugs Cass and Kara would give her, or from Barbara’s “let’s rationalize away the hurt”.

Stephanie missed them.

As if on cue, her phone started blaring Selena Gomez’ “Me and my girls” on the highest volume possible. She grumbled as she got up, avoiding Alicia’s eyes. She felt embarrassed for saying so much, especially when she’d been so adamant to remain silent over the issue the day before. She apparently had slept on the problem and woken up more frazzled than ever.

“Who is it?” Alicia asked in a tone of attempted nonchalance. Stephanie hoped this was her way of skipping through the awkwardness that would surely come from such a representation of vulnerability.

The blonde looked down at her phone. There were only a couple people she had programmed under that ringtone, but there was no way Cass would call, not when they had a Skype session scheduled later in the day.

Stephanie smiled as her phone lit up with the photo of a sleeping man, a white lock of hair falling onto his eyes.

“The other fuck up of the fam,” she answered over her shoulder, before accepting the call.

* * *

“Jason, what are you even doing here?”

The man was leaning against his motorcycle, just outside the library building. Other students paid him no attention, despite the glares that Jason directed at them. Stephanie didn’t point this out; she knew that to be one of Jason’s defensive tactics for when he didn’t know how to act around people.

As intelligent as he was, Harvard med just wasn’t his crowd.

“What? No ‘hello, Jason, how are you?’”

Stephanie knocked her foot against his, friendly.

“Not until I find out if I should be wearing more purple for this encounter.”

Jason gave her one of his lopsided grins, finding humor in her assumption.

“No, blondie.” He glanced down at her clothes, which consisted of jean shorts and a lilac t-shirt that Barbara had given her, with GLR PWR printed across the front pocket in bold black letters. She thought it was cute. “This amount of purple is just fine,” he deadpanned.

“Ok, first, this isn’t even the right shade.” She put a hand on her waist, cocking her hip to the side. “Secondly, hello, Jason, how are you? What are you doing here?”

Jason rolled his eyes at her, but he had probably seen this coming. They weren’t so close that it would warrant a visit after only a month away. Not even her mom had been to Steph’s dorm yet, though not for lack of worrying. The travel costs were a deterrent, but Stephanie knew her mom would eventually accept the help Bruce was offering.

“I was in the area. The demon spawn is doing some sort of training and Dickiebird didn’t want him unsupervised, but it’s not long term. Thought I would see how my favorite BG is doing.”

Stephanie looked at him. She forced herself to maintain her previous stance, despite how surprised she felt at Jason’s lie.

Or not a lie, exactly. Maybe he had been sent by Dick without knowing that Tim was in town, though she doubted that Damian could keep such a secret. It was more likely that he knew and that this was just what they usually did; talking around Tim’s presence when relaying the facts to her.

The idea frustrated her a little.

Stranger still was the possibility that Jason had knowingly come to meet Tim. The hostility in their relationship had been one of the main reasons why Stephanie hadn’t originally approached the second Robin.

Although she and Tim hadn’t been together by then, she had continued to love him, this boy who had meant so much to her younger self. She had been loyal to the friend he still was, outside of their romantic relationship, and Jason had hurt Tim badly, which wasn’t something that Stephanie could easily forgive.

At the same time, she had seen how similar she and Jason were, how they were both trying to get Bruce’s approval. It had eventually softened her to him, just as it had with Damian.

Stephanie wanted to ask him about Tim, but didn’t even know where to begin. When it came to Jason, talking about the family was like walking a minefield.

“Brotherly duties, huh?” she said instead, deciding that a bit of pestering was just up their alley.

“What can I say? Dick guilt trips like a pro. He’s got this whole big brother thing going on and it’s making me look bad.” He pushed off the bike, moving towards the library entrance.

“Is this about looking good in front of Alfred?” she teased. “This sounds like it’s about looking good in front of Alfred.”

“Please,” Jason scoffed. He led them up a flight of stairs and into the main area of the library. “Alfred loves me. This is about Babs.”

“Ah, the truth comes out.” Stephanie looked around them. “Is there a specific reason why we’re here or is this you being you?”

“I want to check a translation they have here. I was told it’s one of the cleanest texts on The Odyssey.”

They wandered through an aisle as Jason checked the titles. Stephanie noticed he had a map pulled up on his phone, though she didn’t think the school provided one on their website.

“You only want me for my library card,” she sighed. “This is a very one-sided friendship.” Stephanie grinned at the way Jason tried to keep from smiling. “Also, Homer? I thought you were more of a Jane Austen or Margareth Atwood kind of guy.”

Jason gave her a cursory glance, distracted with his search.

“I can be both,” he replied. “I recognize the importance of literature in the development of our current society, unlike you heathens.”

“Careful,” Stephanie smirked at him, “you’re starting to sound like Damian.”

Jason stopped, turning to look at her.

“Don’t ever kid about that. I’d rather step into another pit.”

Stephanie scoffed at his deadpan, stepping around him to continue down the aisle. “You love him. Why else would you be taking care of him?”

“I’m more of the muscle, really. No, it’s around...” He motioned for her to go left. “The brat’s at the Boston branch, for whatever reason Bruce could come up with. We think he just wanted a breather from all the teenage moodiness, ‘cause, let me tell you, the brat is being a _super_ brat.”

“It’s the absence of my calming influence.” Stephanie flipped her hair at him, earning a cackle from Jason.

“Yeah, that must be it.”

Stephanie ignored his sarcasm, watching as Jason pulled a book from one of the shelves. It was the size of her Molecular Bio textbook, with a cover that looked twice as old as humanity.

She let him study it for a moment, waiting for him to become engrossed in the words.

“Tim call you here?”

“Yeah,” he answered, conversationally. She kept looking at him, but Jason simply turned a page. “What, did you expect me to freeze up or something?”

“I don’t know.” She shifted her eyes to the shelves. “I was expecting more guilt. More ‘Oh my god, Steph, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you your ex was in town!” or ‘I’m sorry we let you think he was travelling the world while, actually, he was just moving on with his life.’”

Jason closed the book. “Yeah... No. You ain’t getting that from me.”

He started towards the checkout desk.

“Seriously?” she yelled after him.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, blondie,” Jason said once she’d sidled up to him. He thrust the book into her hands.

Stephanie glowered at him, but moved to greet the librarian, who had been looking at them with an air of disapproval. “Hi, sorry. It’s just this one.” She gave the woman her student ID. “And you,” she turned towards Jason, “You knew Tim was here. He was the one who called you. Bruce needing a vacation? He told me the same thing yesterday.”

This seemed to pick Jason’s interest.

“You saw him.”

Stephanie exhaled forcefully, calming herself. “Yes, I saw him. He looks... good.”

Jason worked his jaw. It was something he did when considering what to say. One of his tells, but not something that outright indicated dishonesty. They were all very good at keeping secrets, but Jason was no Bruce when it came to actual lies. He was no Tim.

“Yeah, he’s better now.”

Stephanie didn’t comment on this. She accepted the book from the librarian and apologized for whatever ruckus they might have caused.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked once they were out of earshot.

Jason took a moment to think it over. She usually liked how sullen he could be, the distinct weight he put into his words, which was different from Dick’s quips and Damian’s proneness to aggressiveness. He was a lot like Barbara in this. They both knew the value of silence.

It wasn’t something she appreciated when she was feeling impatient.

“Wasn’t my place. It was pretty clear you weren’t over whatever had happened there.” Jason walked past his bike, into the parking lot. “I wasn’t gonna bring up babybird, not when you were still so hung up on it.”

Stephanie huffed. “How could you know if I was over it or not? I never even mentioned him!” She grabbed his arm, forcing Jason to stop. “And don’t walk away from me!”

Jason stared at her hand, jaw set, until Stephanie pulled away. He focused back on her.

“That’s right. You never mentioned Tim. Very pointedly, in fact. You would ask about everyone and then just wait to see if someone would let something slip.” He took the last few steps towards her car, checking his watch. “Now get in, you’re taking me to the airport.”

She glared at him, but dug into her pockets for the keys. Jason slid into the passenger side, and it gave her a moment to gather her thoughts.

Stephanie wanted to deny what he’d said, but she couldn’t. It had become a habit, after that first year, and she hadn’t known how to break away from it. She had always cared about Tim, even when his name or his presence had also brought her great pain. After he left, she had worried, but could never seem to swallow her pride long enough to actually ask one of the bats about it.

She clicked her seatbelt into place. “Who are we picking up?”

Jason smirked at her, already messing with the radio. “How do you know I’m not the one leaving? Boston is cool and all, but this is too much fresh air. I miss Gotham’s fog.”

Stephanie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Really?” she mocked. “So I guess the bike is mine, now?”

“Sure,” he pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket and dangled it between them, “if you can hotwire it, despite all of Babs’ security.” She reached for the keys, but Jason pulled away. He threw his head back, cackling at her attempts. “You can’t accept a goddamn thing from B., but you’re fine with stealing from me? Girlie, I taught you well.”

Unable to grab the keys, Stephanie jabbed him on the ribs.

“As if I ever learned a thing from you. That was all Babs.” Jason smiled at that, leaning back against his seat as she started the car. “I just want you to know, if we’re picking up B., he’s getting punched in the face.”

Jason hummed, eyes closed.

“Babybird was right. You are awful with surprises.”

Stephanie fixed her eyes on the road. It was clear that Jason didn’t intend on continuing their conversation, but she was fine with that. Her mouth had grown dry at the idea that he and Tim had talked about her.

* * *

“Crystal is calling,” Cassandra stated, glancing down at the vibrating phone. She tilted her head to the side. “Pick up?”

Stephanie had brought them back to her dorm after the airport, where the two had made themselves right at home. It was a small miracle that Alicia hadn’t been there to freak out over celebrities in her room or something like that. Stephanie couldn’t fault her for it, but she could hope to postpone the inevitable interrogation.

“She’s been screening those calls since we got in the car,” Jason chimed in from his spot on the bed. Stephanie threw a pillow at him.

“Look, I talked to her yesterday, it’s fine. She knows it’s all good.” She cringed at the look Cassandra gave her. “As if you’ve never screened Bruce.”

Cassandra crossed her forefingers in an X, before pushing them in opposite directions.

Different. Yeah, Stephanie knew it was different.

Cassandra tapped the phone. “Not overprotective. The right amount.”

The blonde groaned, draping herself over her best friend’s side. “She wants to know about my weekend, but I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Cass turned to look at Jason over her head.

“She saw Tim yesterday,” he explained, completely disregarding Stephanie’s pleading expression. She suspected he was still trying to earn Cassandra’s trust, which apparently involved snitching on the rest of them.

“Oh.” Cass nodded once, before lifting a hand to play with Stephanie’s hair.

“You knew, too?” Stephanie mumbled into her shoulder. She knew Cassandra thought the gesture was calming, but couldn’t bring herself to be mad at her for trying to pacify Stephanie through it. The gentleness in the touch worked on her.

“Little brother,” Cassandra supplied. “Of course I knew.”

Stephanie let out a shaky laugh. “Ok, spill. I feel like B. sent the whole clan here. Three birds and two bats? Boston’s turning into a freaking zoo.”

“Must be the brat’s influence,” Jason replied distractedly, then yelped when Cassandra flicked a pencil at his nose.

“Bad brother,” she admonished, much to Stephanie’s amusement. Seeing the bats together was always strange, since they were so good at bringing out both the best and the worst in one another. The siblings, in particular, with how immature they got in their disputes.

“Did Dick know? Tim is his brother, too.”

Cassandra didn’t answer. She continued to comb through Stephanie’s hair, but her shoulders had tensed.

Jason shuffled until he dropped to the floor to sit with them. “Dick’s been _preoccupied_.” His grimace told them exactly what he thought of Dick’s distractedness.

Cassandra nodded again, less harsh in her judgments.

“Bruce stays home, most nights. Damian and Duke need him more than Gotham, need him alive.” She took Stephanie’s chin, looking at her as if she wanted Stephanie to understand. “So Gotham needs Dick.”

Jason sneered at her words. “Yeah, ‘cause none of us ever needed them before.” He ignored the way Cassandra seemed to still next to them. “Gotham comes first. Before me, before you, before babybird –”

Cassandra inhaled sharply. She closed her fist and brought her thumb under her chin, then forward. It was a warning, but Jason paid her no attention.

“I had to tell you about Tim, little bat. Do you know how fucked up that is?”

The girl reached across Stephanie, grabbing his collar. It wasn’t overly aggressive, just a reminder, a touch from a woman who knew where to push to cause pain.

“Don’t,” she repeated, aloud this time.

Jason shut up, but there was still a maniac spark to his eyes. He swallowed thickly, eyeing Stephanie.

“Tell her what?” The other two shook their heads, and so Stephanie sat up straight, trying to catch their eyes. “This is the second time Jason says something cryptic about Tim. I want to know what the hell is going on. Why are you even here?”

Cassandra let go of Jason. She put a hand on Stephanie’s shoulder. “We are here for family. Gotham has the corporation. You need us.” Stephanie frowned at her lap. “About Tim, we will talk later.”

The words were genuine, even if they weren’t the whole truth, and they placated her anger. The relationships amid the bats remained unstable, at best, but Cassandra was good at making herself available when the others couldn’t.

Jason’s involvement was a bit of a shock, especially given how Cass hadn’t completely warmed up to him or Damian. Stephanie knew there wasn’t actual animosity between them, but Cassandra wasn’t Dick. The girl was compassionate but reserved, open only amid those who had earned her loyalty.

People like Barbara, who had built her a home. Like Alfred, who had offered her affection. Like Tim, who had shown her family.

“And you’re sure you don’t need my help?”

Cassandra smiled, shaking her head. “No help. We are here to listen.”

“And what if I want to know about Tim?” Stephanie insisted.

Jason ran a hand through his hair. “Not our place, blondie. You said you saw him, so ask babybird.” He stretched, dropping his legs on top of hers. “I thought I’d be hearing about the wonders of an Ivy League education, by now.”

Stephanie wanted to push the subject, but she could read the set of Jason’s shoulders. He had made up his mind and, like Cassandra, could be very stubborn. She shoved his legs away.

“What is there to say? It’s been a month. There’s shit I know from mom, Alf and Leslie, but then someone asks me about neural pathways and I just? How am I gonna remember all those neurotransmitters?” She gave a breathless laugh. “My professors seem pretty cool, though. Didn’t think I’d be able to say that.”

“That still sounds like a pain,” Jason teased, but he seemed envious, a wrinkle appearing between his eyes.

Cassandra chuckled, pulling Stephanie into her side again. “That sounds like what you needed.”

Stephanie raised her eyebrows at her, amused. “Yeah? And what is that?”

“Hard work. Important work,” the other replied instantly.

“I have a long way to go before I do anything actually important.”

Jason tapped his foot against her knee. “Hey, you’ll get there. From what I hear, you’ve never let anyone get in your way. I don’t see why you’d start now.”

Cassandra patted his foot, supportive. “Sweet.”

“She’s right,” Stephanie said with a laugh, “that was almost sweet.”

He kicked them lightly. “Shut up! I’m not sweet, I’m a fucking rebel!” he bit back, but his tone was playful, tender in a way that Jason couldn’t have been three years earlier.

It was nice that they could get along now, despite their past. There were things that Cassandra would never forgive about Jason, Stephanie knew, but she suspected those were things that Jason would never forgive about himself, either. Especially if he had come at Tim’s request, because that would imply some sort of connection between them.

“How has the pit rage been?” she asked, reaching to lay a hand on Jason’s knee.

He shrugged. “Better, most of the time. I’ve been talking to a shrink that Leslie recommended, so that’s helping.”

“You’ve been taking your meds?” She studied his eyes, searching for the hints of green that the pit sometimes brought to them.

Jason groaned, raising his hands to shield himself from Stephanie’s gaze.

“Yes, mom. I’m taking my meds.”

Cassandra blew a raspberry at him, and the three laughed at the ridiculousness of her expression.

Stephanie loved them, each in their own way.

Jason was dry and sarcastic, the sort of funny that didn’t always please. He and Stephanie were very similar in how they felt, though different in the way they dealt with those feelings. He understood what it was like to hate a parent and still want them.

Cassandra was her best friend, despite the distance, despite how many times the “mission” had gotten in the way. It was easier now that Cass had relocated to Gotham, but it also meant relearning how to act around a person she hadn’t actually seen in two years.

As if sensing Stephanie’s thoughts, the girl wrapped both arms around the blonde, pulling her closer. She had grown much more comfortable with physical contact, which was a victory in itself.

“Will be okay,” Cassandra whispered.

Stephanie nodded. “I know.”

“You two are so mushy.” Jason grimaced, then tried to pull his legs away. Cassandra tugged him in, too. “Why is it that whenever I find myself sandwiched between beautiful people, at least one of them is always somehow related to me?”

“Ew!” Stephanie exclaimed. “Stop making this dirty.”

They fumbled as Jason tried to extricate himself from the hug and accidentally kicked Stephanie in his fussing. Cassandra ended up the only one still on the floor, sprawled with her feet under the coffee table. She threw her head back, turning to stare upside-down at the dorm door just as someone knocked.

“Did you guys order anything?” Stephanie asked. She ran a hand through her ponytail, which had gone askew with their shuffle.

“I got us something to eat.” Jason plopped down on the bed, but something about his tone caused Cassandra to shift her gaze to him. It made the blonde suspicious, because she knew better than to expect Jason to be thoughtful. Not without a dozen excuses to cover it up, at least. “What? It’s not a fucking bomb. Geez!”

She sent him one final glare.

And there, on the other side of the door was none other than Tim Drake himself, still with the glasses, but with his hands full of plastic bags.

“I, hm, heard there was a party?”

Tim smiled at her, a shy little thing. It was an expression she had known well, once. The chipped tooth from a fight with Killer Croc, the curve of his lips as he tried to determine if he was welcome or not.

“Hi.” Stephanie pulled at the end of her ponytail, unable to stop herself. “You heard right,” she said, overcoming her shock and stepping aside to let Tim in. “We’re the party.”

Jason snorted at her forced enthusiasm, but Stephanie ignored him. She watched as Tim’s eyes swept across the room, taking in the beat-up coffee table and the posters she had put up. The purple post-its. She was not ashamed of her mess, but it made her a bit self-conscious to have him in her space.

She needn’t have worried.

Tim put the bags down on the table and walked straight to the corkscrew board, tracing the outline of one of the pictures with his fingertips. In it, Stephanie was laughing, the sun making a halo out of the fairness of her hair. It was one of her favorite photos of herself, because she would always remember that one perfect afternoon, when everything besides it felt like it was falling apart.

She would always remember Tim, with his old camera and his willingness to stay by her side, despite what both his father and Bruce had to say about their relationship.

He turned to look at Stephanie, a gaze so heavy that it weighted on her. She wanted him to look away. She wanted to memorize the feeling, to tuck it away into the recesses of her mind, for when he left again.

“The whole gang, back together!” They startled apart, surprised by Jason’s laughter.

Stephanie frowned at him. “You were never part of the gang.”

“What are you talking about, blondie?” Jason grinned at her. “I’ve been part of the gang for, like, three years, you just didn’t know.”

Tim shot him a warning glare that Stephanie decided not to question. She had bigger concerns.

“Ok, I need to understand what’s happening here. Last time I saw you two together, you were snapping at each other every three seconds. It was disturbing.”

They seemed to share a silent conversation, in which Tim mostly glared daggers at Jason while Jason smirked.

“We moved past it,” Tim said, finally.

“Yeah, if by move past it you mean I helped Cassandra drag your ass back home after you went AWOL.”

Cassandra was opening the cartons of take-out. She pulled one of the burgers out, examined it, then threw it at Jason.

Tim brushed past Stephanie to get to the bags. He unpacked a carton of French fries, before grabbing a burger for himself.

“You never dragged me back. I haven’t been in Gotham in more than three years.” He turned to Stephanie. “I would have visited.”

She gawked at him. “Yes, because that’s the part that’s making me upset.”

Cassandra wrapped one of her friend’s hands around the last burger. “Eat now. Talk later.”

They were hiding something from her, Stephanie knew, but she suspected the truth would come out eventually. Knowing how stubborn Tim was, it would be easier to let him tell her in his own time, without pushing.

“Fine,” she exclaimed, promptly biting into her burger.

She could see the mirth in Cassandra’s eyes, knew that it was at her expense. It was better than the pity she had expected; more like she was being teased, less like they were trying to keep her in the dark. She thought back to what Jason had said earlier, that it was Tim’s story to tell, and it calmed her a little.

Stephanie picked up a fry and flicked it at Cassandra.

“Don’t you feel like we’re tempting fate?” Tim sat down on the bed, next to Jason. “The four of us, under the same roof. Not to mention Damian, who’s in my apartment. We’re all in the same ten-mile radius.”

He looked pensive, eyes narrowed behind the frame of his glasses, but Stephanie couldn’t curb her own amusement.

“Wow.” Jason let out a laugh, expressing just what was on her mind. “You can take the mask out of the boy, but not the paranoia.”

“I’m serious.”

“Oh, we know.” Stephanie took another fry. “That’s why it’s funny.”

Cassandra scoffed. She put her left hand up, palm down, then clasped it with her right hand, pushing her fingers down.

Jason snapped his finger at her. “Little bat’s right. Blondie’s a hypocrite. First thing she asked me when I got here was if she would need her costume.”

She huffed at him. “You showed up out of nowhere! That’s common sense!”

This warranted a chuckle from both Jason and Tim, while Cassandra climbed up on the bed to sprawl over them.

Stephanie smiled at the scene. They were comfortable together, which was something she’d never thought would happen. After everything they had gone through individually – Cassandra’s childhood, Jason’s death, Tim’s abandonment issues –, it was nice to see them heal.

“You guys are just adorable, aren’t you?” she taunted, nibbling at a fry. “Where’s my cell? I need to take a picture or Alf will never forgive me.”

She tossed the plastic bags onto the floor, trying to find her phone. Jason groaned, but let himself be held down by Cassandra.

Instead of just taking the photo, Stephanie flipped her camera into selfie mode and fitted them all into the frame. After the first click, she made a face into the camera, earning a cackle from Jason. The sound sent them all into a bout of laughter, and she took several shots, trying to keep the focus.

Cassandra leaned over her shoulder to look at the photos. She pulled up one where the four were laughing, a little blurred because of the movement, but otherwise recognizable.

She smiled at Stephanie, then touched her thumbs to her index fingers, pressing one hand to the other.

“It is perfect,” Tim agreed softly. He was looking at the photo, still.

“Well,” Stephanie forced her eyes away from him, “it’s decided. This one’s going on my instagram.”

Jason nudged her shoulder with his foot. “You using us for the likes, blondie?”

“You know it!” She grabbed his leg, tickling the inside of his foot as he trashed behind her.

Tim yelped, most likely caught by a stray elbow.

She let go of Jason and jumped to her feet, skipping over the coffee table and onto Alicia’s bed, just as he made a grab for her. Tim took advantage of Jason’s perch to kick him onto the floor.

“Ok.” The man pushed himself up, eyes flashing. “You two are about to taste Dante’s nine circles of hell!”

“Oh my god, you nerd!” Stephanie laughed, struggling to stay upwards on the bed as Tim, too, hopped on in an attempt to escape.

Jason barreled into him, and the momentum sent the two over the edge, into the other corner of the room. In their fall, they tugged down at the comforter, making Stephanie lose her balance.

From her place in the mess, she watched as Cassandra took the discarded phone and started taking photos.

“I hate this family,” Jason groaned, trying to extricate himself from Tim.

“No, you don’t,” Cassandra replied.

Jason glared at her for a moment, before collapsing onto his side with an exasperated huff. “No, I don’t.”

Tim snickered at them. He pulled himself onto Alicia’s bed with her and inspected the level of disarray they had caused. It wasn’t much, thankfully, but enough that she was, again, grateful that they were alone at her dorm for the night.

“Okay, fight later. We need to eat this food.” Stephanie threw herself back into the gap between the beds. “I ain’t cleaning ketchup from the walls, again.”

“Again? You’ve only been here a month.” Tim sat beside her, eyebrows scrunched up in amusement.

She hmmed around the last bite of her burger, but this didn’t seem to discourage Tim, who continued to look at her expectantly.

“Alicia scares easily, and I apparently don’t know how to move like a normal person anymore,” she gave in. It had always been impossible to refuse him.

“Occupational hazard.” Jason shrugged, deliberately stepping over them and onto the coffee table. Stephanie pretended to reach for his foot again, which almost made him trip. “I’ll cut your hand off, blondie, I swear.”

He was being dramatic, in typical Jason fashion. It was something that she suspected had come from Dick, this urge to perform, but that could also have been a remnant from his time on the streets. Not letting things go, not showing weakness.

Stephanie wished he could let himself be a little less guarded.

And then he and Tim shared a smile, both reaching for the fries at the same time, and the image was as childish as it could possibly be. There were no masks between them here, in the safety of her four walls.

Cassandra seemed to agree, because she held the phone threateningly at them, poised to take their photo if they didn’t behave.

“Big sister,” she declared herself with a hand to her chest, “I get the fries.”

“That’s cheating,” Tim complained, already passing her the carton.

She tilted her head sideways, smiling. The smile was something Stephanie had learned to fear. “I could fight you for it.”

Jason let his fries fall back into the paper plate.

“No, thanks,” both boys said at the same time, scrambling away from her.

Stephanie and Cassandra high-fived.

“Teach me your ways in scaring boys into subjugation, oh wise assassin teacher,” she bowed to Cassandra, who laughed.

“Yeah, just what we need,” Tim pushed his glasses up into his hair so he could cover his eyes with his hands, “for Steph to find new ways to manipulate us.”

He meant it in good humor, but she felt the barb more deeply than she should. She wasn’t the only one at fault in this regard – Tim had more than his fair share of manipulations under his belt – but, given how they’d last departed, her misdoings were an awkward remembrance.

“Hey, Tim,” Jason called out, interrupting her divagation. “Why is the brat asking me where you are?”

Jason had taken out his cell once again, and he frowned at it as the device lit up in his hand. Message after message appeared on screen.

Tim didn’t move his hands, but his lips quirked up in a way that contradicted his apparent disinterest. “Oh, is he?”

“Yes,” Jason began, “because, for some reason, your GPS is saying you’re in India.”

“Well, it just goes to show that Damian shouldn’t depend on such simple GPS software.” He put his glasses back, a glint of mischief to his eyes.

“Is this a lesson?” Stephanie exclaimed brightly, attempting to erase the somberness caused by her previous musings before Cassandra pointed it out. “Are you teaching Damian, right now?”

Their relationship was entertaining, she couldn’t deny.

As far as she had known, Damian had maintained his dislike towards Tim. Apart from the boy’s misdirected anger and the less-than-optimal principles on which he had been raised, the family knew most of the hostility came from envy, if not from a desire to be accepted by Tim.

It must have hurt him, Stephanie imagined, to have others say how similar Tim was to Bruce, how well they worked, when Damian was the one who had Wayne blood.

“Why do you think he’s with me, in the first place?” Tim smirked as she rolled her eyes.

“I’m just surprised you haven’t killed each other, yet.”

He looked up at the ceiling in consideration. “Damian and I have come to an understanding.”

“Which is?” she prompted. Cassandra made a sign behind Tim’s back, bringing her fist up to her forehead and down onto her left hand, forefingers and thumb extended.

“That we’re brothers, yeah,” he scrunched up his nose, having sensed Cassandra’s motion, “and that we work better together than we did separately.”

Jason waved lazily at them, cellphone still in hand. “What he’s getting at is that they’re plotting to take over the world and I wasn’t even invited.”

“Pretty much.” Tim laughed. “Also, he feels bad about attacking me now that I’m a civilian.”

“As if you could ever be a civilian.” Stephanie scoffed. Cassandra nodded her assent, and together they ignored Jason’s cackle of incredulity.

“It’s all about perception,” the other man complained.

Maybe it was, but Stephanie had seen Tim move, had noticed the lines of muscle that couldn’t be hidden under his t-shirt. He might say he’d left the vigilante life behind, but his training was still there.

Tim would never go back to being that eager boy who’d gone to Bruce, all those years ago. He had Shiva and Ra’s Al Ghul and King Cobra stitched to the fabric of his being, the kind of consciousness and attention that was a step away from a fight, at all times.

Stephanie wondered if Tim had ever put on the Red Robin suit after he’d first decided to walk away from them. Did it fit him still? Had it constricted him, like a skin that he’d outgrown and then shed?

“So you decided to teach him detective work by doing a disappearing act? That’s cold, babybird.” Jason’s grin was crooked, teeth peeking out, all edge. “I’m almost impressed.”

“This was supposed to be about his tech skills. He’s just trying to go around it.”

“Will be mad,” Cassandra pointed out, making Tim shrug.

“I honestly don’t care. He’s living with me, so he’ll have to behave.” He picked up a carton of chicken wings.

“Okay, _Bruce_.” Jason dodged the paper plate Tim had aimed at him. “In the meantime, the midget’s blowing up my phone. Watcha gonna do about it?”

“Hm, nothing?” Tim let him grab a wing. “Ignore him and he’ll go away? I feel like that’s the best way to deal with Damian.”

“He’s living with you,” Stephanie mocked. “So how’s that working for you?”

She pretended not to see Cassandra, who still hadn’t put down her cellphone, even as the woman looked up at her with a grin. “Badly. Damian loves him.”

Jason choked on a piece of chicken, and she was suddenly glad that Tim hadn’t thought to bring them drinks.

“Damian loves all of us.” Stephanie pointed a fry at Jason. “The kid names his pets after us, so that he can shower them with affection without feeling weird.” She sighed. “You’re all fake tough and you know it.”

“Not Cass,” Tim interjected. He wasn’t chastised by her, but she hadn’t expected him to be.

Even with his negligent family and stoic role models, Tim had been the least reserved of the bat boys. He had friends; not as many as Dick, but closer friends. People he trusted with his mind, not just his life.

In trying to emulate Dick, the way the older man presented himself to others – charming, good-humored, infallible –, Tim had almost lost himself. And Stephanie loved them both, of course, but she often hoped Dick had someone to talk to, who could see him behind the acts he put up.

She’d been Tim’s person, years before, and it hurt to think of all he’d hidden from her since then.

“Fake tough?” Cassandra repeated, looking thoughtful. She closed her hand into a Y, turning her thumb towards her sternum and making a back-and-forth motion. The sign for “me too”.

They were silent for a moment.

“I don’t know,” Jason said. He looked at each one of them, jaw set. “We fight for what we believe. We take care of those we love. I think that’s pretty badass.”

A smirk played at Tim’s lips. “Ain’t nobody fresher than your motherfucking clique?”

Jason blinked at him.

“I take it back. This one’s a dork. Nothing badass about him.” He pointed at Tim with his thumb, turning to Cassandra. “In what universe do I have a freaking clique?”

“Hm, this one?” Stephanie laughed. “ _I’m pullin’ up in that Bruce Wanye. But I’m the fuckin’ villain, man, they kneeling when I’m walking in the building,_ ” she rapped, humming when she couldn’t remember the lyrics. “ _Ain’t nobody fucking with my clique_.”

“ _Clique, clique, clique, clique_ ,” Tim joined. “ _Ain’t nobody fresher than my motherfucking clique. Clique, clique, clique, clique,_ ” they sang at each other, still laughing.

Jason stared at them in a mixture of disgust and amusement. “I regret everything.”

Cassandra danced along. She didn’t know the words, or didn’t care for singing, but she enjoyed the movement and the joy in sharing it with others. She put down the phone and pulled at their hands, forcing Tim and Stephanie to get up and twirling them across the space between the beds.

Jason had to move the food out of the way, to stop Stephanie from stepping on it as she stood on the coffee table.

“You lunatics.” He snickered at them.

She sang absent-mindedly, taking this moment to look at Tim, who was still being spun around by Cassandra.

His face looked leaner, not as tired, but also older. He didn’t have a lot of Jack in him. Although Stephanie hadn’t met Janet, she could see traces of her in Tim’s cheekbones and in the curl of his hair. She understood why Alicia and Mike had been quick to let her go the previous day; Tim had grown very attractive.

And she needed to stop that train of thought.

“Okay, you’ve outdanced me, Cass.” Tim chuckled, dropping down on Alicia’s bed. Cassandra beamed down at him. She made a hook with her forefingers, then swung them forward. “Sure, what do you want as a prize?”

She held a hand in front of her mouth, as if she was drinking from a glass.

“Little bat’s got the right idea.” Jason got up, stretching his arms over his head. “I could use a drink.”

“There’s a vending machine two floors down,” Stephanie supplied. She got off the table and onto her bed, snagging the carton of chicken wings that Jason had left there.

He eyed her with distrust. “Cass already finished the damn fries. You better leave some wings for me, blondie.”

“You better be quick, then,” she replied cheekily.

Cassandra snorted at them, grabbing Stephanie’s phone once again and sitting down on the floor.

“C’mon, Timbo. Time’s a-wastin’.” Jason glared at them as he took Tim by the arm and pulled him out the door.

Stephanie watched Tim pause at the door and make a face at her, and then they were gone. She turned to Cassandra, smiling.

“Those two are just precious,” she observed. “So are you, of course.” And she blew Cassandra a kiss.

The other nodded, before sliding the cellphone across the coffee table. She held out her palms, flipping them in midair.

“You’re done?” Cassandra ignored the wariness of her tone and gestured to the phone, offering it back to Stephanie, who narrowed her eyes at it, suddenly afraid of what she would find. “What did you do?”

The window for her Instagram was still open, showing that a new set of photos had been uploaded to her account. Cassandra hadn’t bothered with a description, but the emojis she had added would probably be enough for anyone who knew them.

The first photo was one of the selfies Stephanie had taken; in focus, with soft smiles, except for Jason, who had cocked his eyebrows at the camera. They looked good.

The second was the one where they were all laughing. She hadn’t noticed initially, but she had been leaning against Tim’s leg, head resting on his knee.

The third was, unsurprisingly, the one Cassandra had taken after Jason had chased them around the room. In it, Stephanie was beaming, ponytail completely undone, at the entangled boys.

She hadn’t noticed Cassandra taking the last photo. She and Tim sat side by side against Alicia’s bed, smiling at each other, with the photos on her corkscrew as background. It was a nice photo, but it allowed for too many questions.

And people were already liking it.

“If I kill you, I’ll have your entire family on my ass, won’t I?” Stephanie asked, looking up from her phone.

Cassandra wasn’t fazed. “You wouldn’t be able to kill me.”

“Hypothetically,” she insisted.

“Hypothetically, you wouldn’t be able to kill me.”

“Fair enough.” Stephanie pushed herself back to lean against the wall. She stared ahead for a moment. “Do you hate me?” Cassandra snickered. “I’m serious! I don’t know why you’re doing this to me!”

“You need to talk.”

Stephanie held her gaze, disliking the determination she saw there. Cassandra didn’t usually meddle into the affairs of the rest of the family, unless something had gone terribly wrong. It was an ominous concept, that whatever remained unsaid between her and Tim could be that bad.

“We did talk, back then, and he freaking left.” She looked down at the chicken wings, twisting the edges of the carton to keep her hands moving. “He didn’t even say anything. One moment there, the next, poof.”

This seemed to soften Cassandra. She reached out to pat Stephanie’s leg and the downwards line of her brows was in itself a warning.

“He didn’t want to,” the woman confided.

Stephanie pushed the carton out of her lap, so that she could bring her knees up to her chest. “Funny way to show it, leaving to travel around the world like the rich kid he is.”

“Didn’t travel.” Cassandra’s voice was barely a whisper. She was observing her reactions, but Stephanie didn’t look back. “Went to Hong Kong.”

“To you?” She frowned as Cassandra shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does. Is why you should talk.” Stephanie waited, but the clarification she wanted wouldn’t come.

From what Jason had already said, she could tell that Cassandra would continue to be vague, possibly so Stephanie would let her curiosity get the best of her and go bother Tim about it. Twenty-four hours earlier, the idea would seem ludicrous, but the night had shaken her quite a bit.

Tim shouldn’t feel as familiar as he did. Not after all these years.

“Jason, I don’t give a damn. Duke is great and all, but I can’t find it in me to care what goes on in that house,” they heard coming from the hallway, just before the door was pushed open.

“Ok, Rhett Butler,” Jason sneered. “I won’t bring it up again.”

Tim exhaled forcefully, and though his tone was serious, his eyes had turned playful. “In this scenario, are you seeing Bruce or Dick as Scarlett?”

Cassandra smiled at their quips.

“Bruce,” she declared, and one of the soda cans slipped from Tim’s arms at his surprised chortle.

“No, my dear Bruce,” Jason recited with exaggerated charm. “I’m not in love with you, no more than you are with me, and if I were, you would be the last person I’d ever tell. God help the man who ever really loves you. You’d break his heart.”

Not even her previous tenseness could stop Stephanie from joining in their laughter.

She looked down at her cellphone screen, where the photo of her and Tim was still displayed, and ignored the pang of awareness that it brought.

_I can’t think about that right now_ , she remembered Scarlett had said in the book. _If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote is from Tell me you love me by Demi Lovato, whose album actually inspired this damn fic.
> 
> I hope you guys liked this chapter and that I made these characters justice, because I swear I tried.


	3. Our talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The things Cassandra makes her do.

_Só hoje eu desisti de nós mil vezes e te odiei por mil razões diferentes, e aí você sorriu._ _E já era._

“I do hate you, sometimes,” Stephanie declared as she spotted Cassandra sitting on her bed, a book in her lap.

She didn’t know how they had managed to avoid Alicia. Her roommate had been in an uproar after that first Instagram post, worried about what the Waynes thought of her décor and upset that she hadn’t been present to tease Stephanie about Tim.

That they had come back to the dorm basically every day of the following week remained a secret to Alicia. She didn’t want the girl to start staking out their building.

Cassandra grinned and tapped her temple with a curved hand.

“If you know, then why are you smiling?” Stephanie dumped her backpack on her desk, pulling out the chair.

There was a plate with orange peels by Cassandra’s side. From the looks of it, she had been there for some time now, waiting for Stephanie to get out of class.

“Crystal called,” she commented, gesturing to the laptop that was still at the desk.

“Yes, she’s been calling every day.” Stephanie rubbed her eyes. “Since you sent her those damn photos.”

Cassandra shrugged. “She worries.”

“She worries because I have you three bad influences breaking into my dorm room.” She groaned, leaning over the back of her chair. “You’re lucky she loves you and hates Bruce, or else she’d be here by now.”

Her friend didn’t dignify that with a response. She went back to the book on her lap, the picture of the studious university student that she wasn’t.

“What are you even reading?” Stephanie asked with a laugh. Cassandra lifted it, so she could read the cover. “Emma? Is this a Jason thing? Because that boy needs to update his reading list.”

Cassandra pursed her lips to stop from smiling.

“Alfred,” she corrected. “He gave me something about the –” She struggled with the exact wording. “The delusions created by misguided influences, and how one can be oblivious to what makes them happy.”

“Sure, about all that,” Stephanie shot her a smirk, “but also romance.”

Cassandra chuckled. “Also romance.”

“Honestly, that man’s almost as big a sap as Jason. I blame Shakespeare, though I can’t remember his plays ever being that inspiring.” She narrowed her eyes at her corkboard, as if the photos and post-its could bring an explanation. Cassandra followed her gaze, curious.

“The photo,” she looked back at Stephanie. “I had not noticed it.”

The photo from that first day – the one in which they were laughing – hung right above the old one Tim had taken. Stephanie hadn’t realized she’d been staring at it. Tim had been the one to give it to her, saying that the composition read like an artsy piece.

He had told her he’d gotten back into photography after moving to Boston, as part of his rehab against vigilante business. They had spent that afternoon in the park, and she had modeled for some of his photos.

Like old times.

“It’s a nice photo.” She fixed her eyes at the book in Cassandra’s hands. “I missed having you guys around. Med school is great, but –” She sighed. “Things feel so superficial, sometimes. Like, people, or how I interact with people. Alicia tries, and I can tell we’re gonna get on well, but there are things I can’t share with them.”

“Or things that feel too big?” Cassandra suggested, curving her hands and moving them downwards in the sign for heavy.

Stephanie didn’t raise her eyes to her, but she suddenly remembered that Cassandra had spent years in Hong Kong, a strange city with a strange language. It must have been hard for her to leave Gotham, especially considering the circumstances of her departure.

“Was it like that for you, too?”

Her friend leaned her head to one side. “Yes. Change is difficult.” She laid a hand on top of the book’s cover. “But we lose more if we run from it.”

Stephanie huffed jokingly. “You bats being cultured and stuff. I don’t even have time for Steven Universe, and you’re there reading Jane Austen. I came out to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.”

Cassandra’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. She first put her palms up, then held up her left hand and made a V with her right fingers, tapping her fingertips to her left palm. (What do you mean?)

“Sorry, I forgot you don’t really get memes.” Stephanie lifted a hand to her mouth, hiding her smile. “Seriously, though, having you here has made things easier. In spite of unexpected Instagram updates,” she concluded pointedly.

Her tone didn’t seem to bother Cassandra, who merely put the book aside. “Alfred liked the photo. He was happy.”

“He would be.” Stephanie grimaced. “He’s almost as bad as my mom. Was he like this with you?”

Her friend made a circle with her right forefinger, holding her left palm parallel to it. Sometimes, then. “He called, but you called too, and Tim.”

Stephanie nodded absently. It was always a bit strange, talking about Cassandra’s time in Hong Kong. There had been so much going on, with Bruce’s alleged death and Damian becoming Robin, it was easy to forget that each of them had been going through some kind of change.

“Dick was really distracted then, wasn’t he?” She rested her chin against her arms. “And Jason says that he–”

Cassandra made a chopping motion with her right hand against her left palm, silencing Stephanie. (Stop.)

“Dick is good,” she declared. “He loves us, but he has responsibilities,” she said the word carefully, sounding it out. “Jason loves, too, and it hurts him. He feels forgotten, but he wasn’t. Dick doesn’t forget.”

Stephanie groaned, hiding her face in her arms. “Why did I ever push my way into this family? This is so complicated.”

The other laughed. Her eyes were kind, crinkling in the corner with a fondness that reminded Stephanie of Tim. It was a bit odd, how much the siblings could look alike when they weren’t even related.

“Not that complicated. We miss family, more than we miss home.” Cassandra nodded to herself. “Hong Kong could be sad, but I had you. I was remembered.”

For someone who had been raised by the least sensitive people ever, Cassandra really did have a lot of emotional intelligence. Stephanie supposed it might have something to do with her ability to read body language, but it couldn’t be so easily minimized. She cared about people in a way not many did.

It reminded Stephanie of something Tim had said, years before. That the reason Cassandra had escaped Cain was that, in locking her away from his words, Cain had allowed her a world of significance inside her own mind.

The League had wanted Cassandra to inflict pain, but they hadn’t known that she had learned to erase that instinct from herself from the moment she had wished not to find it in others. She could withstand almost any type of wound, but violence didn’t bring her pleasure.

She wished for something kinder.

Cassandra seemed to read the change in Stephanie’s expression, because she crossed her thumbs behind her forefingers, drawing them to her chest in a semicircle. Stephanie obeyed, getting up to lie across her friend’s lap.

“I love you,” she murmured, eyes closed. She felt Cassandra lean down to drop a kiss on her forehead. “I’m sorry that I ever hurt you.”

“Humans hurt each other,” Cassandra replied. “We make up for it.”

Stephanie smiled, turning on her side. She felt wiped out from being in class the whole day. It was one of those things she had taken for granted, how exhausting med school could be, even to someone who was used to spending nights fighting bad guys.

“How long are you staying?” she mumbled sleepily, nosing at Cassandra’s knee.

“Long enough.”

“Long enough for what?”

Cassandra ran a hand through Stephanie’s hair, humming. “For you to be okay.”

Stephanie opened her eyes to shoot her an inquisitive look. “Me?”

“You. Jason.” Cassandra paused. “Tim.”

“It still weirds me out that you and Jason get along,” she breathed out. “You never told me what happened there. One moment you were ignoring him, the next you’re helping mediate his arguments with Dick.”

Cassandra took a moment to answer.

“He helped Tim, paid attention when no one did.” She continued to move her fingers through Stephanie’s hair, but the blonde could tell she was modulating her voice. “I don’t like who he was in the past, but I can respect what he is now.”

Stephanie frowned. She couldn’t remember anything about Tim needing help during the past three years, but that didn’t surprise her anymore. The others had hidden things from her, out of concern or kindness, as if they could protect her from the heartbreak brought by Tim’s absence.

“He said Tim went AWOL?” she prompted, and Cassandra’s expression wavered, a shadow falling over her eyes.

“Tim said he had to leave Gotham to train. He lied.”

She opened her mouth to ask for more information, but Cassandra’s fingers had frozen in her hair, lips pressed into a thin line. There would be no more talking about this subject.

“This is what you want me to ask him, isn’t it?” she said instead. “God, I hate bat secrets.”

Cassandra shook her head. “Not bat. A Tim secret.”

Stephanie scowled. “That’s even worse.”

Her friend chuckled softly, almost humorlessly. She didn’t disagree, Stephanie knew, but Cassandra wasn’t about to betray a man who she saw as a brother. Even if he was being an idiot, because that was mostly a staple with the bird boys.

“Anyway,” Stephanie sighed, “you said long enough. Does that mean you’re planning to stay in Boston?”

“Hm, maybe.” She felt Cassandra shift a little, leaning against the headboard of the bed. “Tim and Jason have worked with the Foundation. Gotham is better.”

Stephanie blinked up at her, puzzled by the thoughtfulness of her expression. “Cass, are you thinking about – you know – leaving the business?”

Cassandra frowned and held down her palm, shaking it in a “sort of”.

“I am what I am,” she declared, brows still drawn together. “But I also want to be more, like you.”

Stephanie flipped onto her stomach and put her arms around Cassandra’s waist, smiling up at her.

“I think that’s a brilliant idea. Bruce and Alf are gonna cry, they’ll be so happy.” She let the woman pat her head. “Do you know what you wanna do?”

Cassandra made a beak with her hands and touched them to her temples, then she closed them into fists and crossed them over her chest.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Stephanie snickered. “But you’re thinking about teaching a specific kind of fight?”

“Self-defense. For kids. So they use it well.”

“God, aren’t we a bunch of philanthropists?” She let her head fall back onto Cassandra’s knee. “Forget religion, it’s the curse of Bruce Wayne: to do good unto others.”

“Is that what you want to do?” Cassandra asked and, though Stephanie couldn’t see her from this angle, she could tell it was a serious question.

“Well, yeah.” She picked at a string that was coming undone from her sleeve. “Alf and Leslie aren’t gonna live forever, even though we wish they would. Someone’s gotta take care of the clinic, as well as the family.”

“Bruce wants you to live,” Cassandra admonished, “outside of us.”

“And I will, promise! It’s just… B. knew what he was doing, picking up all these strays. He’s like an irritating uncle to me, now. From the moment he decided to let me in, you were stuck with me.”

She turned her head up a bit, so she could see Cassandra. Her friend blinked at her, before a slow smile dawned on her face, and Stephanie found herself being swallowed into her arms.

“Stuck like glue?” She laughed at Cassandra’s suggestion.

“Dick’s such a bad influence. That song’s, like, the worst the 2000s had to offer.” As she said this, her phone started ringing, making Stephanie sit up. She perched at the end of the bed, trying to reach her backpack. “Is that my mom, again?”

Cassandra snorted at her failed gymnastics and got up to grab the phone. “It’s Hugo.”

“Oh.” Stephanie moved back in the bed.

“Pick up?”

She hesitated before shaking her head. “I’ll call him later. See what he wants.”

Cassandra studied her reaction with narrowed eyes. She wasn’t going to let this go.

“Hugo. Cute guy from your anatomy class.” She paused, as if thinking the information through. “You were excited that he might ask you out.”

Stephanie clenched her teeth, not knowing what to say.

“I figured it was best to wait. I don’t want to start dating as soon as I move to a new place.”

Cassandra wasn’t convinced. “Something’s wrong?”

“No, not wrong, just…” she blew out a sigh. “I’ve been seeing Tim a lot, ok? I’m just not in the right headspace for a date with some other guy.”

The worry melted from her friend’s expression, but the understanding in her eyes was no less aggravating.

“You love him,” she stated, a certainty to her tone that left no possibility for Stephanie to argue.

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” she tried, anyway, and Cassandra raised an eyebrow at her.

“No less true.”

Stephanie turned her head away. Had she been one to blush, she imagined her entire face would have gone purple. As it was, she felt fluttery, stuck to her spot under Cassandra’s calculating eyes. The woman meant well, of course, but her relationship with Tim wasn’t exactly the easiest subject to discuss.

“Look, he meant a lot to me, when we were younger. Those feelings don’t just go away, especially with him so close.” She fisted her hands around the comforter. “It’s so easy to fall back into being – Us. He’s a pain in the ass, all the time, but he’s also sweet and funny and…” She trailed off.

“And in love with you,” Cassandra finished.

Stephanie didn’t look at her. She ran a hand through her hair, taking a deep breath.

“I hate that he’s here.” She narrowed her eyes. “People say you’re supposed to get over your first love, but it’s so much easier said than done.” She scoffed. “Like, whenever I think of love, when I watch a movie or talk to you about it, it’s him.” Her voice shook. “It’s him, Cass.”

“I know.” Cassandra kneeled on the bed, hugging her.

Stephanie didn’t cry. She felt like she’d done enough of that in the previous years, when the guilt over her actions and the resentment over his actions used to swallow her. With Tim away, it had become almost easy to forget there was something missing in her life.

“I wish I’d fallen in love with you,” she muttered.

“We tried –” She could hear the smile in Cassandra’s voice – “but sisters. Better.”

“Yeah, who needs romance?” Stephanie pulled back a bit. “I have you.”

“You have Tim, too.” Cassandra smirked. She stepped down from the bed, so she could fix Stephanie with a stern look. “I want you happy. Happi-er.”

“I don’t know if the two of us can be happy after everything we went through.”

Her friend tilted her head in acknowledgement, but her expression remained determined.

“Tim suffered. He left to run away, but got better, instead.” Cassandra wanted to insist on the matter, she could tell. Something about Stephanie must have betrayed the ache in her chest, because the woman paused. “Ask him today.”

“Today?” she groaned.

“You are meeting, aren’t you?”

Stephanie nodded. “Yeah, he wanted to show me the arcade near his place. He promised we would get something other than coffee, since he drank so much of it yesterday.”

“So ask him today,” Cassandra said, as if it was that simple. As if Stephanie hadn’t been putting it off for a week.

She didn’t want to meddle into his past, especially now that they were getting along so well.

Moreover, she couldn’t deny being afraid of what she would find out. Jason hadn’t ceased his hints and even the bits she got from Cassandra weren’t indicative of anything good. Stephanie feared what could have happened three years ago that had finally driven Tim away from the bats. She feared her part in it.

“Fine.” She shrunk under Cassandra’s gaze. “I’ll ask him.”

* * *

Tim stared at her, eyebrows drawn together as his eyes swept across her face. Stephanie pretended not to notice, because it was easier than looking back at him.

“You’re awfully quiet for someone who wouldn’t stop texting me about DDR until three in the morning,” he remarked, his smile a flash of white teeth.

It wasn’t the same smile he would give before leaving Gotham. That one had been full of charm, but careful, something he melded for the perfect outcome. This one was still charming, but it was almost lopsided, clumsy. The type Tim gave when he wasn’t paying attention.

She liked it better.

It reminded Stephanie of their younger years, though she supposed it might have been the setting. They had been frequenting every park, diner and arcade they could find around Boston, in what Tim promised was research in his quest to turn Damian into a real teenage boy.

“I’m just tired,” she offered back, though it had sounded more interrogative than she’d wanted. “Who knew med school would finally tire out the great Stephanie Brown?”

Tim snickered, turning one of the tokens in his palm.

“You’re getting soft in your old age,” he teased. She gasped in response and hit him on the shoulder, causing Tim to stumble a step forward. “And violent!”

Stephanie walked past him and towards the DDR machine. “I’ll show you soft, ex-wonder! Come up here!”

“I’ll have you know that I once had a girlfriend who was in love with this game.” He shot her a smirk. “I found out I could hold my own quite well in it.”

“Yes,” Stephanie laughed, “and she was beautiful and wonderful and brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that I’m sure she beat your skinny ass every single time.”

He inserted the token into the machine, letting her select the configurations. “Not _every_ time.”

The game was easy, a combination of motions that Stephanie had memorized in her adolescence. Even when she didn’t have the money to play, she would spend the afternoons in the arcade, observing other kids and trying to stay out of her father’s way.

Tim knew this story, and that was how they started playing together. He had more than enough money for the two of them, but he would agree to go dutch when she could. He had been smart enough to understand the weight money had on her, which Stephanie had appreciated.

Not for the first time, she caught herself thinking how much easier things would have been, had her baby been Tim’s. He would have wanted it. He would have wanted her.

In her distraction, Stephanie stepped a bit too much to the left. She found air where the ground should have been. Before she could stumble out of the machine, Tim had grabbed her arm, counterbalancing her slipup.

“Are you actually tired –” he panted, trying to accompany the steps – “or is there something on your mind?”

Stephanie struggled through the following moves to gain back her point advantage. “You’re being nosy!”

“Not nosy, I’m concerned.” Tim held onto the bar at his back. “While DDR probably is the most dangerous game here, I don’t want you to hurt yourself by, I don’t know, bouncing a basketball at your own head.”

She shot him a dirty look, which Tim answered with a grin.

“Fine!” She crisscrossed her legs and gave a spin, showing off a bit now that the song was ending. “I’m distracted.”

“With what?”

Stephanie glanced at him, seeing how Tim’s brows had scrunched up in concentration. He looked absorbed in the dance.

“Just something Cass said.” She checked their scores. “About you.”

She’d timed it just right. Tim turned to her in confusion and the rhythm of the song quickened, startling him back into the game. The damage was done, however. Stephanie had beat him.

“That was a dirty trick,” he said once they’d found a bench.

She took a sip from her water bottle. “Not really a trick. Cass did say something about you.”

“Really? What did she say?” Tim sounded relaxed, but his smile had gotten a careful quality to it. It was a façade he’d put up, already on edge.

“She said you went to Hong Kong after leaving Gotham.” She watched his eyes shift from the crowd to his shoes. “But that she didn’t find out about it until Jason told her.”

Tim hummed an assent, but he didn’t volunteer any new information.

Stephanie wanted to shake him. The blankness of his expression bothered her; she liked him better when he was emotional, angry or hurt or spitting things he didn’t mean. She knew how to deal with that. The coldness was something he picked up from his mother, despite also hating the impenetrability of it.

“Don’t close me out,” she snapped. “You better tell me what’s going on, because I’m leaving, if you’re gonna go ice king on me.”

Tim lowered his head into his hands. “Just give me a second, ok?”

“So you can come up with some excuse? No.” She put a hand on his shoulder, forcing the man to sit up. “Come on, I thought we were gonna be honest with each other, this time around.”

He gave her an unimpressed look. “Now you’re the one who’s being nosy.”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna bring it up, but you wanted to know what was on my mind.” Stephanie let her hand fall to his sleeve, pulling lightly at it, and Tim gave a resigned sigh.

“I was in a bad place after Bruce’s disappearance. I was fighting with both you and Dick, Jason had just tried to kill me again, and the brat was not making it any easier.”

“Yeah,” she conceded, “but then you brought Bruce back. Dick leveled up his big brother skills to make up for the Damian thing, and we were even talking again. I thought…” She clenched her teeth. “I thought we would go back to normal, but you left.”

The look in Tim’s eyes as he stared at her was troubled. It was better than the blankness he’d previously worn, but the pain in his expression only aggravated the feelings Stephanie had been trying to smother: the doubt, the worry, the acceptance.

She didn’t want to hurt him anymore.

“The problem about some types of mental illness,” he begun, “is that a person can be completely conscious that what they’re doing is bullshit and they still won’t be able to stop themselves.” Tim turned back to the crowd. “That’s how I felt, then. I knew I was being a jerk. That I was being destructive and reckless, but I couldn’t stop.

“I had lost _everyone_. And, yeah, for some time after Bruce came back, I felt better,” he said when Stephanie made to interrupt, “but then everything crashed down again. I mourned all of you. That was real to me, even when you didn’t really die. Bruce was there, but I still felt worthless, replaced. He couldn’t even understand my actions against Captain Boomerang, despite how I’d already proven I wouldn’t cross that line.”

Stephanie swallowed, trying to ease the tightness in her throat.

“This is about the thing with Captain Boomerang and Freeze, isn’t it?” She frowned. “Dick said you handled that well. He was impressed, said that when it came down to it, he could always count on you to make the right choices.”

Tim let out a humorless laugh. “I orchestrated the whole thing, Steph. I wanted him to die.”

“But he didn’t die.” She took his hand in hers. “That was you, too.”

“After that, I realized I was changing into a person I didn’t recognize. Someone dad wouldn’t recognize. I tried to stay in Gotham, but being near Bruce just made me angry and having everyone else there just…” He forced out a breath. “So I left and I let Dick think I was taking some time to train, again.”

Stephanie let his words sink in. She felt stupid for not seeing the signs of his grief, but that point in time hadn’t been easy for anyone. Even after the situation surrounding Bruce settled, she’d been a little busy with cases, then lying on a hospital bed after being poisoned by her father.

The dreams from the Black Mercy still stuck to the back of her mind, a reminder of everything that could be. It was one of the reasons why Tim’s departure had hurt so much.

“And Jason?” she asked, rolling his fingers between hers.

“I think Jason was finally coming down from the pit madness. He was the last one to see me out on the roofs, so I told him I hoped he’d get better. You know he was –” Tim grimaced – “important to me.”

She beamed at him, glad to diffuse some of the heaviness. “You mean how he was your first crush?”

“Bring that up while he’s around and I’m never speaking to you again.” She laughed at the way his lips had curled in distaste. “But sure, that. When I was a kid, he’d been a symbol of hope, in and out of the uniform, ok? Like you didn’t crush on Babs.” He waved the hand she wasn’t holding. “Anyway, I must have seemed emotional, because he got worried and went after me.”

Stephanie snickered. “Jason’s such a freaking sap. And now he lords it over you, ‘cause god forbid he actually show that he cares about us.”

“It’s our way.” He smirked, unapologetic.

“Sometimes I pity you boys,” she teased. “Sure, you get to be filthy rich, but then you also get the emotional constipation and the brooding. Is Dick less of a jerk ‘cause he was never officially adopted?”

“You say that because you haven’t seen Dick in one of his moods.” He shuddered, as if remembering something horrifying. “He has a temper to match Jason’s and Bruce’s scowl down to a T.”

That startled a laugh out of her.

“Oh god, no.” Stephanie brought their hands up to cover her grin. “I need at least one of you to be sane. If Dick turns into B., I’m removing myself from this freaking family.”

“Too late.” Tim let go of her hand, leaning back on the bench as he chuckled.  “You pushed so hard that Bruce’s become used to you. You’re a Wayne in everything but name.”

She smiled, less wide, with more feeling than humor. “So are you.”

Tim didn’t answer immediately. He stared at her, then ahead, and his eyes were so dark that they could have been Gotham’s night sky; clouded, with just a hint of blue.

“I know I’ll forgive them, at some point,” he said. “I love them. I was always awful at staying mad at people I loved. And that’s when they’ll find out about everything,” he glanced back at her, “but not a second earlier.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?” she blurted out. It wasn’t a subject she’d meant to touch upon, but it was difficult to control the impulse. “Forgiving me?”

He rubbed at his jaw. “Sort of?”

Stephanie nodded; she had expected that answer.

She schooled her expression into a more careless smirk, crooked, with her brows arched in her best imitation of Jason. “That’s cold, babybird.”

Tim snorted. He hid his face in his hands, effectively pushing his glasses completely askew. It was endearing that he had never grown out of that habit, as if he kept expecting them not to be there. He’d decided to use contacts, back then, because of how often he would just fling the glasses away on accident.

Stephanie didn’t know why he’d gone back to them, but it was cute.

“I’m glad I met you again, Steph,” he muttered into his hands. “I missed you.”

She smiled at him, glad that he couldn’t see it. For some reason, she felt like the smile might betray her, show more than she had intended.

“Well, ex-wonder, I’m not gonna complain ‘bout that.” She waited until Tim peeked at her from between his fingers. “I missed you too.”

There was a moment in which they just looked at each other, comfortable in their silence.

“You have something else you want to ask, don’t you?” Tim fixed her with narrowed eyes, and Stephanie blinked back innocently.

“It’s just...” She pursed her lips. “Why didn’t you go to Cass, once you were in Hong Kong?”

A shadow fell upon Tim’s expression. He clenched and unclenched his hands in his lap. “I don’t think I can tell you about that, not yet.”

Stephanie resisted the urge to reach out to him. Dread welled-up in her chest as she considered how bad things could have been, taking into consideration the thoughts that Tim had already admitted to having.

“Then tell me something else,” she proposed.

This didn’t seem to surprise Tim, though maybe it should have. Stephanie had been brash when young, but her time among the bats had taught her the virtue of patience. Bruce was the king of being forceful, and it had taught most of them to just… let things go.

Tim nodded, growing thoughtful.

“I spent a month in Brazil last year, meeting my mother’s family.” He picked up her water bottle, taking a sip. “An aunt reached out to me. They were clearing out their house and she’d found some old pictures of my parents. Apparently, they’d been around to study the _sambaquis_.”

“Your mother never told you much about them, did she?” Stephanie tried to recall a time when Tim had discussed his family.

“Not really. You know how mom was. She tried, but I don’t think being a mother was really what she wanted for her life. She and dad loved me, sure, but we both know that’s not always enough.” He smiled down at his hands. “My aunt, though, she was super friendly. It was like if Alfred let go of formalities.”

“That sounds amazing and terrifying, at the same time.” Stephanie snickered.

“It was.” He shot her a grin. “But it was also pretty great. My aunt brought along this friend of my mother’s when she went to pick me up at the airport and the guy just stood there, tears streaming down his face, while my aunt hugged me. I had no idea what was happening.”

She laughed at his expression. She could imagine his confusion then, especially after spending so much time with people as emotionally repressed as the bats.

“Too much affection for your Dark Knight disposition?” She wrinkled her brows in an attempt to copy Bruce’s frown. “ _No emotions, only justice._ ”

Tim smiled as she elbowed him on the ribs. He wouldn’t say it outright, but Stephanie knew he agreed with her. It was something of a joke between the Robins, that their relationships with Bruce would be much better if the man just learned the art of “hugging it out”.

“It was pretty strange to be in a house where everyone wore their hearts on their sleeves,” he conceded. “Also, I met some older relatives and they would call me ‘Timóteo’, since Tim isn’t really a name there. Aunt Chris didn’t, but she had been raised here in the US, before my grandparents died and she moved to Brazil.”

Stephanie tried to repeat the name, but couldn’t. “Ok, I speak Spanish, not Portuguese. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Yeah, my Portuguese isn’t that great, either, but my cousins were cool about it.” He shrugged.

“Were they as pasty as you are?” she asked. “Like, you’re still red from the park.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Some of them are. You know we’re of Jewish ancestry. Mom was just too much of an atheist to bother with teaching me about it.”

She nodded, leaning back onto her hands. She swung her feet.

“It’s weird, isn’t it? How much they could have taught us, if they weren’t busy being scumbags.”

“I think we did well, despite them.” Tim knocked his shoulder against hers. “I would’ve liked more attention from my parents, but their negligence is why I got to go out at night to follow B. around.”

“So that makes it all right?” Stephanie threw her head back in a laugh. “Boy stalker, you have the weirdest priorities.”

“Hey, that’s how I met you.” She stopped herself from whirling around to look at him. Instead, she continued to swing her legs, letting Tim speak. “Mom and dad were good people, but not the best parents. There’s no version of our reality in which the best scenario is one without you in my life.”

Stephanie let out a breath, disguising her anxiousness in a chuckle. Her stomach had clenched at Tim’s words, at the tone he’d adopted.

“Now you’re just using Dick’s lessons against me,” she reproached playfully.

Tim smiled, eyebrows scrunched up in puzzlement. “What are you talking about?”

“Suaveness 101. Saying you want me in your life after disappearing for three years was both a Dick move and a dick move.” She waved her hands around to accentuate the different meanings.

“It really was.” Tim grimaced. “Is it any better if I tell you that I’ve spent these years getting my head on right?”

Stephanie turned to look at him fully.

People liked to say that time healed all wounds, but there were certain pains that nothing could really erase. The bats knew this better than most; there were people whose absence became a veil that distorted whatever else life could offer.

It had been like this for Bruce, with the loss of his parents. For Tim, because of the people who had left him, even before their deaths. For Stephanie herself, in a mother whose mind was always far away. They had cultivated their wounds into barbed wire, in order to keep others out.

Stephanie had had close friends, in school, before Spoiler, but their names had crumbled away in the recesses of her mind. They couldn’t hurt her, when time had erased them.

So why had these three years done nothing to her memories of Tim?

“It’s a little better,” she replied. Her voice sounded hoarse, and Stephanie had to clear her throat to continue speaking. “I’d like it even more if you just groveled.”

Tim chuckled. “I thought that’s what I had been doing?”

“You boys and your pride.” She clicked her tongue. “Can’t even grovel properly.”

“Maybe you’re right.” He propped his chin on his hand. “Do you know what Jason’s excuse was for everything he did after the pit?” She shook her head. “He said, and I quote, ‘went a bit hangry there for a sec, I guess.’”

Stephanie barked out a laugh and had to lean against Tim’s shoulder to keep herself upright.

“That’s just –” she tried, only to dissolve into another fit of laughter. “ _Hangry_!”

“I swear on the Jewish god I don’t believe.” Tim smiled as she recomposed herself. “It’s like he thinks apologizing might actually pain him.”

“Damn, I’m gonna use that on him.” She rested her forehead against Tim’ shoulder. “I can’t believe we’re his friends. We have no survival instinct.”

“Isn’t that exactly my type, though?” She looked up to see him frown. “People who have tried to kill me.”

“That sets a dangerous precedent for Damian,” Stephanie remarked, attempting to swallow her laughter as Tim’s lips curled down with disgust.

“Gah,” he shuddered. “Why would you even say that?”

Stephanie sat up, tapping a finger against her chin. “Hm, because I’m evil?”

Tim heaved a sigh, but the beginnings of a smile ruined its effect. “You’re gonna have to fight Damian for that title.”

“How’s the little twerp, anyway?” Stephanie squinted at him. “He didn’t even tell me he was coming.”

“He’s fine. The brat took over my apartment and now I don’t have any meat in my fridge. He asked about you, in that roundabout way of his. He probably thinks calling you first would show weakness.” Tim rolled his eyes. “Not even Dick can do miracles, I guess.”

“And to think I considered myself an important part in raising him,” she sighed dramatically.

“You’re going to make me pity him. Having Bruce as a father, then you and Dick as his examples of responsible adults?” Tim tsked at Stephanie, who gasped in outrage.

“I got into Harvard! I’m as responsible as they come!”

Tim dodged as Stephanie tried to slap his arm, and the two laughed.

“Geez, okay!” He held up his hands, smiling. “I’ll invite you over for dinner, once his meetings and your class schedule line up.”

Stephanie settled back onto the bench.

“You have my class schedule?” She scoffed when she was met with an impassive look. “Of course you do.”

“Back on the subject of Jason, though…” He paused as a group of teens walked by them. “I never got to ask how you two became friends.”

“It’s not much of a story. You were there when he started working with the fam. It was kind of a mess, but when are we not?” She scrunched her face up. “B. was a jerk, especially after you left, and Jason was always on the tightrope. He’d stopped using the, you know –” she imitated a gun with her hands – “but B. and Dick were still being awful about it.”

“Dick was?” Tim stared ahead into the crowd, again. “He’s usually more understanding than that.”

“True, but, hero worship aside, Dick’s also a stubborn ass. After those first few years, he put this label on Jason and just wouldn’t see anything that went against it.” Stephanie rubbed her eyes, pulling at the skin in frustration. “And you know their relationship was shaky to begin with.”

“Are you saying you’re any better? I remember how you and Cass got, when he was around.”

“Hey!” She poked him on the chest. “We did that out of loyalty for you. We weren’t just gonna forgive and forget.”

Tim snickered, grabbing onto her hand. “Okay, okay.  I appreciate the thought, but I don’t need you guys jeopardizing your relationship with the others because of me.”

Stephanie relaxed her shoulders, entwining their fingers. Tim glanced down at their hands, but gave no indication of whether or not she should let go.

“It wasn’t just because of you.” She lowered her voice. “Cass didn’t like his methods. You know how she feels about the importance of life. I don’t think Jason ever really regretted the violence from back then, and that was a major point against him in her book.”

Tim stayed silent for a moment. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, absently drawing shapes into her skin. Even in the uproar of the arcade, the touch was all she could focus on.

“You wanted to kill your dad, once.” She nodded at him, unsure of what to say. “We’ve all had people who we simply knew would be better off dead. I know why Cass feels like that, and I know Bruce sees it as a line that can’t be crossed, but he can’t–” He stopped, noticing he’d been raising his voice. “He can’t act like he’s so above it all.”

She recalled something Tim had told her when they were younger, about Bruce’s state after Jason died. There were many things worse than death, something she had learned first-hand. It was simplistic of Bruce to be against killing, but to use violence when it fit his goals.

“I get that. I hated him after that day with my dad.” Stephanie squeezed his hand. “But Bruce’s just bad at emoting. He says this shit because he doesn’t want us to make the same mistakes he did. It’s the same reason why Dick can be an ass. They just have the highest expectations for us.”

Tim frowned. “Doesn’t that piss you off?”

“Sure.” She chuckled at the frustration in his tone. “I’m not a robot, or a soldier, or whatever. I’m just sick of fighting. Jason loves us, so he stopped killing, and that’s enough for me. I don’t think he’s any more damaged than the rest of us, just maybe a little more volatile.”

“That’s a nice way to put it.” He quirked an eyebrow at her.

“I have a way with words.” Stephanie gave him a shit-eating grin, knowing it would make Tim laugh. “Bottom line: killing is bad, but it’s not gonna corrupt someone’s very soul, unless you wanna get religious about it.”

“Yes, truly the Shakespeare of our generation,” Tim said dryly.

Stephanie let go of his hand so she could pinch him on the arm. “Okay, smarty-pants, what’s your take on it?”

“I think we should look for other ways to help people. What we did was thrilling, sure, but it’s just cutting off heads.” He was whispering, just loud enough to be heard over the hum of the crowd. “For Bruce to lecture us on morality is ridiculous. The modern sovereign state is defined by the monopoly of the use of legitimate force, in order to ensure that people won’t live in constant fear. Killing would go against that social contract. However, his actions outside the law are already a breach of that contract. He can’t just create a new line and expect the world to conform to it.”

She watched him fiddle with the water bottle, a touch of amusement to her smile. They could always count on Tim to rationalize an activity that had been normalized twenty years ago.

“Spoke like a true Law student.” She chuckled. “Is that why you’ve been working with Jason on the Foundation? Cass told me something about it earlier.”

Tim nodded, giving her a look full of exasperation. “Look, I’m not saying everyone should give up their colors. I just don’t want Bruce acting like he’s higher than God.”

“Just ‘cause we want something, doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen.” Stephanie looked around them, before standing up. “We’re doing our best. Jason’s doing his best. We’ll be fine.”

“Even after everything we’ve been through?” Tim smiled up at her.

It was unfair that his smile could still twist her stomach so much, just the right amount of sweet and cocky and crooked. It held the air in her lungs long enough for Stephanie to choke on it.

And he was so careless with it, too.

She laughed, trying once again to hide her uneasiness. “You’d be surprised with how much I can forgive, ex-wonder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this because I'm honestly too anxious not to. I haven't finished the fourth chapter though, so there'll probably be another two-week gap between now and the next update.
> 
> The song for this chapter is a Brazilian song called Nossa conversa by Kelly Smith, which translates to Our talk. I love it and it ended up being the reason why I made Janet's family Brazilian. I just wanted Tim to be latino and Jewish, ok? Don't judge me. And I didn't want to just choose another Latin American country and then get something wrong about it.
> 
> Please give me feedback.


	4. So close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damians knows more about three years ago than he should.

_So close to reaching that famous happy end, almost believing this was not pretend. Now you’re beside me and look how far we’ve come. So far, we are so close_.

Stephanie pushed the door open with her hip, balancing the take-out cartons as best as she could.

The apartment wasn’t as big as the one Tim had kept in Gotham. It was sparsely decorated and minimally arranged: an open-concept kitchen with a small living area and two bedrooms. Although Tim had grown up in Drake manor, its emptiness had created in him an aversion to big, almost hollow spaces, and it showed.

Still, the white furniture was a danger in itself. Especially when it came to tabouleh and shawarma. Sauces and carpets did not mix.

“Damian, come help me, or I’m not giving you any falafel!” she shouted into the living room, trying to blow a strand of hair away from her eyes.

“Please.” The boy appeared at her side and lifted the cartons from her arms. “As if I would condescend to eat such low-grade products.” He fixed her with hard eyes. “Your take on Arab cuisine is appalling.”

Stephanie stuck her tongue out at him. “You say that every time, and every time you end up eating the damn thing. Just admit you like it, Dami.”

He finished arranging the food on the counter, before turning to her with a slight smirk. “Never.”

It always caught her a bit by surprise, to remember that Damian had grown a sense of humor. Stephanie liked to think it was part of her influence on him.

“Where’s Tim, anyway?” She looked around them, as if the man would just jump out from behind the couch. “He said his classes had ended for the day, when we talked on the phone.”

“I think the Boston branch called him in,” Damian replied distractedly as he started rummaging through the cartons. “Father has been trying to ease him back into the company.”

Stephanie frowned. “Why?”

She’d assumed Tim had distanced himself from WE after he left Gotham. It wasn’t a completely unfounded belief; Bruce had gone back as CEO at some point, and Tim had been able to evade the press ever since.

“Father thinks it will be good proof of his trust in him.” Damian clicked his tongue. “A peace offering, of sorts. I believe my presence here has that same intent.”

As far as Stephanie knew, Damian had spent the last two months with Tim. She had started frequenting the apartment about a month ago, and their routine was certainly interesting to observe. They bickered, but it was good-natured, friendly in a manner that would have been impossible for their younger selves.

Still, peace offering wasn’t exactly the word she would use.

“We’ll see how that goes for him.” She snickered, accepting a plate of shawarma from Damian. The boy gave her a calculating look.

“You believe Timothy will refuse.”

“Maybe not refuse…” Stephanie played with the lid of one of the containers. She dipped a finger into the hummus, before Damian could stop her. “He left for a reason.”

“Yes.” He grabbed the container from her. “But, as I understand it, his suicidal tendencies have receded since his committal.”

Stephanie stilled. She put the carton of pilaf back onto the counter and slowly turned to Damian. The boy seemed to have sensed her reaction, because his jaw was set, eyes closed as he waited.

“Suicidal tendencies?” The words caught on her throat.

“You did not know.” Damian kept his voice low, as if the thought had escaped him. Stephanie wanted to shake him out of his composure. “It was the reason why Jason went to Hong Kong.”

She thought back to what Cassandra and Jason had said. They hadn’t been very forthcoming with their information, but this seemed to fit the scenario they had constructed. They had, after all, implied that Tim had said something to Jason and that it had unsettled the older man.

“Did Tim try to…?” She swallowed, unable to speak.

“Not that I know of,” he stated quickly, grabbing onto her hands. Stephanie hadn’t even realized they were shaking. “According to the intel I’ve gathered, he took a more passive approach to it. He went after a criminal in Hong Kong, an individual who Cassandra herself had not been able to stop.”

Stephanie pulled away from him. She took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind. It was a shock, but not something she hadn’t already considered. The hints given, as well as her own memories of Tim’s actions, drew a telling picture.

More than anything, it was being kept in the dark that hurt her so much, that both Cassandra and Jason had known this and decided not to tell her. Tim was her friend, first and foremost, and the idea that he could have died before they made up was terrifying.

“You’re talking about Cricket.” She looked back at Damian, who nodded. “I remember that. Cass was super anxious about it, for some time. I didn’t even realize there was something else happening.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Cassandra did not wish to worry you.” He studied her for a moment, most likely assessing whether she was calmer. “I imagine Timothy swore her to secrecy.”

She ran a hand through her hair, scoffing. “Yeah, but you knew!”

Damian cast down his gaze. He didn’t look ashamed often, but Stephanie could recognize the discomfort in his stance.

“I found out through my own means. Because of your closeness, I assumed Cassandra or Jason would have informed you of the situation.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “And while I do not condone the concealment of mental illnesses, I cannot say I would have told you, in their stead.”

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at him.

She supposed she didn’t make a very imposing sight. Damian at fifteen had already gone through a growth spurt that put them at the same height. His features were sharper than Bruce’s, more reminiscent of his mother and just as severe.

If he hadn’t been easily intimidated as a child, very little could do it now.

“I had the right to know!” she snarled, feeling a familiar heat settle inside her throat.

Damian was unimpressed by her display. There was something reproachful about the turn of his lips, which told her he didn’t agree with her statement.

“Oh, don’t act like you care.” Stephanie huffed, refusing to feel chided. “If it was up to you, Tim would be dead in a ditch, by now.”

The boy kept his eyes on her, a nerve jumping on his jaw. The two of them had always had short fuses, and it was clear that his control was slipping on the face of Stephanie’s accusations.

“Is that truly what you think of me?” he asked in a monotone. “That I would stoop so low as to wish harm on someone who has become family to me?”

“You’ve gone lower.”

Stephanie knew it was bad even as she said it. The calm façade that Damian had sustained until then shattered, his dark green eyes flashing with ire.

It had been years since anyone in the family brought up his actions while with the League, she suspected.

Damian brought a fist down onto the counter. “Enough! You do not have the right to disrespect me!”

Stephanie startled at his outburst, taking another step away. His violence, however, could only enrage her. It was a reminder of every other time she had had to push back, after her father got into one of his tempers, after Bruce tried to overlook her.

“I could have lost him, Damian!” she shouted back, waving a hand in the air. “You could have lost him! Can’t you break through that damn frigidness that you inherited from your horrible mother and, I don’t know, be a fucking human?”

He grabbed onto her shoulders, her arms entrapped between them.

“Stephanie, stop.” She thrashed against his hold. “Stop! You cannot still believe I would be indifferent to this. Timothy is my brother.”

Damian slid his hands to her elbows and tugged her closer. He still wasn’t used to hugs, keeping their arms in an awkward, half-raised angle, but it was the closest to comfort that Stephanie had ever received from him.

“I should have known,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his shoulder.

“He is better now, I promise. It took time, but you have seen him.” Damian struggled with what to say. “Timothy is stronger than we could have known.”

“No.” She went limp in his arms. “I knew.”

Tim had to be, to have dealt with all the losses and the betrayal.

In some level, they all were. The effort it took to take tragedy and twist it into determination was not easily made. They had been willing to sacrifice a lot for Bruce’s mission, but it was only now that Stephanie realized that there were things – people – she couldn’t bear losing.

Her chest ached with the thought that Cassandra and Tim might have felt the same way about her, once.

Damian let her go, but kept close. “I am glad the two of you have found each other once again, but I cannot stop myself from worrying.”

“That I’ll hurt him?” she teased, only slightly hurt by the insinuation.

“It is not for him that I worry.” He turned back to the counter, clicking his tongue. “You have spent quite some time together.”

Stephanie felt drained from their previous argument, but she could see where this was going. “We’re friends, Damian.”

“Yes,” the boy answered. “You were friends before, and we all know how that ended.”

She walked around the counter to stand in front of him, but Damian didn’t meet her eyes. Having arranged the food in different plates, he moved towards the microwave to reheat them, giving his back to her.

“I know you’re afraid of change, but that’s kinda ridiculous. First you drop a bomb on me and now you’re lecturing me on a relationship that isn’t even a relationship?” Stephanie crumpled one of the cartons and threw it at the back of his head, which earned her a shout of protest. “Baby bat, this is Bruce-grade assholery.”

The intercom buzzed and she saw a disgruntled Tim appear on-screen, grumbling about how his password wasn’t working. It was another thing that he and Damian sometimes did, just to spite each another.

Before she could reach the intercom, there was a sigh from the kitchen.

“He is going to break your heart, Stephanie.” She froze mid step, turning to look at Damian. He was holding his head up, as defiant as he had always been. “It’s what he does.”

“Talking from experience, lil’ D?” She watched his expression go from stricken to furious, before the boy composed himself. A part of her recognized she’d hurt him, and it was that recognition that made her continue talking, trying to ignore the weight of her previous words. “Anyway, been there, done that. Not much for Tim to break now.”

“I sure hope you are right, Stephanie.”

He continued to set the table without another glance towards her, and Stephanie buzzed Tim in.

For now, they would have to keep the conversation on hold so as not to alert Tim of information they weren’t supposed to have. It would be difficult. Without the distraction of her anger, a million questions had started popping into her mind.

She finally had an explanation to Jason and Cassandra’s presence, but she wished she’d stayed ignorant for a while longer.

It wasn’t as if Stephanie didn’t have her own experiences with mental illness. The entire vigilante community suffered from different conditions, due to the pressure and the violence of the situations they inserted themselves into. Panic attacks, PTSD, depression… The list went on.

One could even argue that they were all suicidal, to some degree, though Stephanie saw them more as adrenaline junkies. Addicted to the good they could do, in spite of how harmful that life could be.

“Damian, I swear to god,” Tim exclaimed as he opened the door and stepped into the apartment, “I’m gonna kick you back to Gotham, if you being here means I’ll have to deal with WE again.”

“You do not believe in god,” the boy shot back. He didn’t smirk, as he usually would have, but his scowl had softened.

“Then I swear to the sensing city program that Alphabet has been implementing at Toronto’s Waterfront district.” Tim pointed a finger at Damian, mockingly threatening, then turned to peck Stephanie on the cheek. “Hey there.”

She smiled, pushing back her previous turmoil. “B. has the best intentions, but the worst methods, doesn’t he?”

“The road to hell really is paved with good intentions.” Tim dropped onto the couch, an arm thrown over his eyes.

“You do not believe in hell, either.” Damian dodged the pillow flung his way. “Father thought you would appreciate the inclusion into our activities.”

Stephanie snickered at the expression the other made; a mix of frustration and humor. It was the best Bruce could have asked for, since his first attempts tended to be much more misguided than this. For someone with such a good understanding of criminal minds, the man was awful at reading his children.

“Tell him to sign me up for R&D or something, not _management_ ,” he said the word as if it left a bitter taste on his tongue. “Honestly, he should have let Drake Industries in the past. Bringing it back now might have been a great power move, but it’s driving me insane.”

Damian shrugged, rounding the counter with a tray. Steam lifted from the plates, and the sight reminded Stephanie of how hungry she’d been, after her last class.

Tim seemed to share this feeling, because he too reached for the shawarmas before Damian had had the time to set the tray down on the coffee table. The younger boy clicked his tongue at them, but was unable to bat away their hands, as his own were occupied.

“You almost look rabid in your hunger,” he admonished, lips pulled down in revolt. Stephanie responded by taking a disproportionate bite of her shawarma.

“I can’t believe we’re being lectured on our eating habits by a fifteen year-old.” Tim shook his head in amusement, watching as his brother took a seat on the floor, on the other side of the table. “I’ve seen you first thing in the morning, brat. You’re almost as bad as Jason, even with veggie burgers.”

“Firstly,” Damian flicked a grain of rice at him, and Stephanie snickered when it hit Tim right on the forehead, raising from the couch to high-five the boy. “Secondly, I am more than qualified to lecture you.” And turning towards Stephanie, “You wouldn’t believe the state of this apartment when I got here.”

She would. Tim was one of those people who were extremely organized when it came to their digital files, but whose space wouldn’t stay clean for more than a day or two. It used to drive Alfred insane, to the point that the butler gave up on tidying his room.

“Have you been to Cass’ hotel?” She quirked a brow at Damian. “She cleans it every morning, ‘cause Jason told her about people going through her stuff while she was out, but it’s back to post-hurricane Katrina by the end of the day.”

“Cassandra has taken after Timothy in more ways than I would have expected,” he sighed. “As much as it pains me to admit, the only one of you who could be counted as a respectable adult is Jason.”

Stephanie blinked at him. “Not Dick?”

“Richard has the palate of a child. He depends on Barbara and Alfred to ensure he’s not malnourished.” Damian took a forkful of pilaf, shaking his head.

“Yeah, Dick’s great, but Jason knows how to cook,” Tim pointed out. He shrugged off his jacket and undid his tie. “One of these days, he’ll pull a Bruce and start taking in kids, and we won’t even be that surprised.”

She tapped her finger against her lips, considering. “Which one of us will pull that first, though? I’d think Dick, before Jason. Jason’s too afraid of commitment.”

“And Dick isn’t?” Tim snorted. “He’s been in love with some of the greatest people we’ve ever met, and he still got cold feet about them. It’s insane!”

“We all know you’re a Dick-Babs shipper, boy wonderful.” She beamed as he grimaced. “No need to hide it, everybody knows you’re a dork.”

“If Richard and Barbara ever rekindled their relationship, I imagine they would be the firsts to adopt a child,” Damian pondered, ignoring the deviation from the subject. “Otherwise, I believe Timothy will do it.”

Tim swallowed the tabouleh forcefully, coughing when it stuck to his throat.

“Me?” he asked in disbelief. “Why me?”

“For several reasons.” Damian scoffed at his surprise. “You are financially well-off, you have a less taxing nightly routine, and you dislike living alone. Furthermore, you have already shown a penchant for taking in strays.” With that, he motioned towards Stephanie.

“Watch who you’re calling a stray, gremlin!” she snapped without any real force, before looking back towards Tim. “But he has a point.”

“I eat take-out almost every day!” Tim pointed to the Arab dishes. “I haven’t used the oven in a year!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re lazy.” Stephanie elbowed him on the side. “If you had to take care of someone else, though, this place would be filled to the brink with vegetables. You’d draw meal plans and activities to enhance the kid’s metabolism.”

Tim seemed to grow even more offended. “I do have someone to take care of!”

“Damian doesn’t count,” Stephanie stated, just as Damian exclaimed his own protest at being seen as a child. “You only treat him like a kid when it benefits you.”

He grew sullen at her remark. She supposed it was something neither Tim nor Damian liked to remember; how their initial reactions to each other had tainted years of interactions. Seeing the two get along now was even stranger than the Jason thing.

“Besides, I was never a child.” Damian pretended to focus on scraping the last of the pilaf from his plate. “Not by the standards of helplessness and naiveté you’ve determined, at least.”

Stephanie shared a look with Tim. Damian’s past with the League always felt like a punch to the gut. It was easy to forget – especially with this grown-up, sarcastic little shit of a boy – that Talia had raised her son in violence.

“What about Cass?” Tim interjected. From the way he shifted his eyes towards Damian, she could tell he was just trying to diffuse the tension. “She’s a better cook than me.”

“Cass spends half her time in my dorm.” Stephanie chuckled. “She’d sooner be adopted by one of us than adopt someone herself.”

Damian nodded his assent. “Cassandra looks for what is familiar to her. She feels safe with the family, in a way she never could feel safe before.”

“Hm, I guess you’re right.” Tim stared at the last bite of his shawarma. “Bruce and Babs did almost battle it out for her. Cass: most likely to make others love her.”

Stephanie choked on the falafel she’d just bitten. “Oh, god, that’s right. Babs was the one most likely to adopt!” She snapped her fingers at Tim. “Quick! Most likely to get into a scandal?”

“Dick, if it’s about his love life. Jason, otherwise.” He laughed. “Most likely to leave the corporation to have their own team?”

“Pff, Kate, for sure.” She waved her fork at him. “That woman’s almost as uptight as Bruce. You have no idea how done she’s with us.” She turned to Damian, who had been looking at them with barely concealed amusement. “Most likely to die in a zombie apocalypse?”

“Thomas, of course.” The boy crossed his arms over his chest. “His righteousness would impede him from abandoning those who slowed him down.”

“I’d have gone with Dick.” she pondered, a bit surprised by his answer.

“Richard is equally self-righteous, but he has the advantage of being one of my main priorities in terms of protection.” Damian nodded to himself. “Yes, I would keep him safe.”

Stephanie bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, but a small, shrill sound escaped her throat. Tim patted her on the back to help her cover up.

“Would we be in that list of priorities?” he interjected, diverting Damian’s glare from her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We are on first-name basis, are we not?”

Stephanie barked out a laugh, unable to hold herself any longer.

“Baby bat, you’re precious.” She reached across the table to pinch his cheek, and, for a moment, Damian seemed too horrified to actually defend himself.

“Do that again and you will lose those fingers.” He bared his teeth at Stephanie, once he’d recovered from the absurdity of her actions.

“Calm down,” Tim said while rolling his eyes. “No bloodbath in the white furniture.”

Damian gave them both a fulminating look. “This kind of aversion to conflict is exactly why I would outlive you all in such a scenario.”

“Oh, please.” Stephanie scoffed, and the boy bristled in response. “You’d get distracted by a puppy and it would be your downfall.”

“Are you implying that I wouldn’t be able to make sacrifices for the good of the mission?” he snapped back, eyes narrowed.

“You might,” she conceded, “but can you actually say that it wouldn’t compromise you emotionally?”

Damian grabbed onto the edge of the table, pushing himself forward. Before he’d risen to full height, however, Tim took hold of his shoulder.

“Are you two going to fight over a post-apocalyptical world? Come on, guys, we’re a family of trained heroes. We would survive it.” He pushed Damian back into his seat, then turned to Stephanie. “I can’t believe you’re making me be the voice of reason in a discussion with the brat.”

Stephanie scrunched up her face, before exhaling forcefully. “You’re right. Sorry, Dames, got a little carried away there.”

Damian nodded, but continued to eye her with distaste. She doubted the resentment in his expression came only from this little argument; he was probably still feeling hurt from her comment on his old crush.

They’d have to talk about it, sooner rather than later.

“Ok, movie night.” Tim checked his phone. “It’s almost nine, so Cass and Jason should be on their way over. Can you guys clean this up while I take a shower?” He groaned, stretching his arms over his head. “It’s been a long day!”

Stephanie observed the line of his shoulders and the movement of muscle under his shirt. Though Tim had always been on the leaner side, his body was still quite a sight. No wonder he had been involved with so many people in their community.

She caught Damian quirking a brow at her from behind Tim.

“Sure.” Stephanie got up. “We’ll even refrain from staining the couch with blood.”

“Hardy har har,” Tim replied, lips pursed. “You’re paying for the cleaning bill, if you do.”

“You would do that to a broke college student?” She pouted, batting her eyes.

Tim snorted as he walked backwards, taking off his tie and throwing it at her. “Don’t be coy, Steph. It doesn’t suit you.”

He rounded the corner into the hallway, but they could still hear his laugh as Stephanie shouted, “Come back here and say that to my face!”

She huffed out a laugh, shaking her head. Damian sidled up to her and clicked his tongue once more, looking both pleased and exasperated. It was an expression she’d grown used to, having seen it in his interactions with Dick when younger, and more recently in the times she ate dinner in the apartment.

Stephanie liked to say he was just _tsundere_ , because nothing annoyed him more.

“Was I as obvious as you are?” the boy questioned, glancing sideways at her.

There was a beat of silence, in which she hmmd thoughtfully. She hadn’t immediately understood what he was referring to, distracted as she’d been.

“To the trained eye, maybe?”

The glare he gave her this time carried a touch of actual anger. “We’re all trained, Stephanie.”

“I wouldn’t worry, lil’ D.” She twisted her mouth to the side. “The boys are great with work, but awful at emotions. You know the deal. First time around, I had to smack one on Tim for him to notice we were dating.”

Damian nodded, his expression carefully blank.

“I don’t feel like that, anymore,” he stated after a breath. “I admired him, then, despite my reluctance to show it. I admire him still, but his place in my life has changed.”

“I know how it feels to be twelve, Damian.” She knocked their shoulders together. “I’m sorry I threw that in your face. I was being insensitive.”

“You were,” he acquiesced, making her snort. “I understand the circumstances that led you to lash out. I have known about Timothy’s illness for almost three years, and it remains a source of concern.”

Stephanie sighed, picking up the plates and following Damian into the kitchen. “I just wish I could talk to him about it.”

“As long as I am not within range.” The boy shrugged. He motioned for her to pass him the plates, turning on the water to wash the dishes.

“He won’t be mad at you.” Stephanie picked a container from the cupboards, so she could put away the last of the pilaf.

“I am not as confident in our relationship as you are.” He avoided her eyes, keeping his on the sink. “Besides, Timothy has a history of disliking when people divulge his personal information to others, as you well know.”

She stilled, trying not to feel like it was a barb at her. Damian’s belligerent nature grated on her nerves, but it was a defense he’d created from years of abuse in his grandfather’s compound. It would take another lifetime for him to unlearn such mechanisms.

_Be the adult. Be the adult._

Stephanie wondered how often Tim found himself muttering that same mantra.

“Well, he forgave Bruce,” she shifted her weight, “he’ll forgive you.”

Damian didn’t look convinced. “Did he forgive father? Their relationship is strained, at best. I don’t think anyone in the family even knows that Timothy has lost his spleen.”

“What?” She turned to face him fully. “When?”

“During his search for father. He was working with the League then, which is how he survived the wounds, despite losing the organ.” He ran the water over a plate absentmindedly. “Mother had a lot to say concerning those times, but I believe it would be best if you heard it from Timothy.”

She lowered her eyes to the ground. “That bad, huh?”

“Our lives have never been easy,” he deflected. “I thought him weak for walking away from the mantle, three years ago, as I had thought you weak for leaving to Africa, but time has proven me wrong.”

Stephanie put a hand over Damian’s, stopping him from continuing to scrape the plate he’d been washing. His skin was red from the friction.

“We joke a lot about turning you into a real boy, Dames, and I guess we kinda wish you’d take us up on the offer.” She pressed her lips into a line. “You don’t have to be Robin to be your father’s son.”

Damian put the plates on the dish rack, brows drawn into a sullen expression.

“I am who I am, Stephanie.” He shook his head, and the brightness of his eyes could almost be the glint of tears. “The mission is all I have ever known, and it has kept me sane through the conflicts with mother.”

The look on his face made her chest constrict.

She loved Damian, had seen him grow from the ten year-old brat he’d been to the teenager standing in front of her. He was still arrogant and confrontational, but she knew that his affections ran deep. He was loyal and intelligent and more sensitive than anyone gave him credit for.

“You’re so good, Damian.” Stephanie lifted a hand to stroke his hair. “Even without Robin. Don’t forget that.”

He shifted away from her, and the movement could have been insolent, had Stephanie not noticed his embarrassment. She let him go, a small smile tugging at her lips.

“Of course I am good,” he stated from his spot near the cabinets. His tone was smug, but, when he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes had an uncharacteristic tenderness to them. “You helped raise me, did you not?”

* * *

“How do you even know about Tim?” Stephanie frowned at her computer screen, from which Barbara stared at her with a tired expression.

“I know everything,” the redhead replied, typing away even as she raised her eyebrows at the camera. “I also talk to Cass and have Instagram.”

Stephanie ran a hand through her hair, pouting. “Of course. ‘Cause everyone in this family enjoys seeing me suffer.”

“Why would you suffer?” Barbara stopped what she was doing. “I thought it would be good for the two of you to talk. Wendy agreed that it was a good idea. She said, and I quote, ‘Isn’t that the dude she’s head over heels in love with?’”

“That’s why I suffer!” She dropped her head onto the desk, knocking her temple against her biochemistry book. “You’re tainting Wendy with your meddlesomeness. She used to be super whatever about our gossip.”

Barbara shrugged, lips quirked in amusement. “Gotham’s been quiet. You know the stats.”

She knew. The major badies were behind bars and the rehabilitation project had been going well. Poison Ivy and Harley were back to their regular day jobs through a little intervention from WE, and they had agreed to help with the Foundation.

Stephanie sometimes felt like she’d woken up in opposite world: villains turning good, Tim going to college, Cass thinking about life outside of the cape.

“Why don’t you guys try Mexican _telenovelas_?” She raised her head to point a finger at Barbara’s image. “I know you like Thalía!”

“We had some time after streaming the María trilogy,” the other said in a deadpan, and Stephanie couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“You saw _María la del Barrio_ without me?” she asked with a gasp, before smiling. “I hope the song got stuck in your head for days.”

Barbara groaned. “Don’t remind me. Wendy got Harper to sing it with her, though I don’t know how. They’ve given me headaches from both the song and the twists and turns of the story.”

“Don’t make that face, Babs.” Stephanie chuckled at the misery taking her friend’s features. “It’s a classic.”

“Be that as it may,” the readhead fixed her with another glare, “it was not enough to keep them busy. Harper was throwing her phone at my face the moment Cass posted those pictures of you.”

“We’re really gonna talk about this?” Stephanie moaned. She had spent enough time questioning herself on the subject, no need to involve others.

Her reluctance must have shown through her voice, because Barbara’s expression softened. It made Stephanie shrink into herself, away from those inquisitive eyes.

“I worry about you, Steph.” She heaved a sigh. “And I know how much he meant to you. If there’s anyone who understands, it’s me.”

“You’ve been talking to Damian. Or talking to Dick, who has talked to Damian.”

Barbara wasn’t moved by the accusation in her tone. She continued to stare Stephanie down, a strength to her eyes that couldn’t be diminished by the distance between them.

“Damian has been cryptic, but I was able to gather that he told you about Tim going to Hong Kong.” She adjusted her glasses. “I figured you’d be a little shaken up by that story.”

Anger flared in her chest, and Stephanie knew Barbara would be able to read it in her expression.

“You knew?” she snapped. “Why am I even surprised? I’m always the last one to know anything!”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” The woman rolled her eyes. “I only found out recently. I thought it was strange that Tim agreed to go to Boston with Damian. After finding out that he was in MIT, it wasn’t difficult to trace his finances back a couple years.”

Stephanie looked down at her keyboard. She hadn’t meant to blow up on Barbara, especially since Cassandra and Jason were the ones who had already admitted to hiding their contact with Tim. It was just easier to blame her or Bruce for the situation, since they had a history of manipulation and scheming.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, bringing a hand to rub her eyes. “I’m just stressed. Classes are exhausting, living in a dorm is exhausting, Tim’s exhausting.”

“Look on the bright side,” Barbara smirked, “at least you don’t have to take care of Damian.”

“Pff, I’m there so often it doesn’t even matter.” She buried her face into her hands and groaned, closing her eyes for a second. “I don’t know how to bring it up without getting Damian in trouble, but knowing that Tim went through all that… And that I wasn’t there for him…” she trailed off.

Barbara tilted her head to the side, frowning. Stephanie knew Barbara was right, that she had gone through much of the same with Dick. The boys were all tight-lipped when it came to their emotions, one of many unhealthy traits they’d gotten from Bruce.

It didn’t help much. Problems always seemed worse, more unfathomable, when they were your own.

“Don’t act like you’re responsible for him, Steph.” Barbara faced her fully, pushing aside her keyboard. “Those were difficult times for all of us. I think Tim gets that. He was the one who approached you, after all.” She leaned back into her chair, having moved forward in her vehemence. “And it’s not like he’s perfect.” A pause. “Did he ever even ask you about Black Mask?”

Stephanie tensed. She slowly lowered her hands back to the desk, where she started picking at a frayed edge of her biochemistry book.

“You know I don’t like to talk about it.” She shifted in the chair, aware of Barbara’s vigilant eyes and her even more vigilant video feed. “He was already acting overprotective. I didn’t want his worry, or his pity!” she spit out the last word. “It wouldn’t have helped.”

Barbara didn’t reply immediately. “I thought so, too, until Dick decided he was done letting me bottle everything up. Worry, pity… It just means he empathizes. Tim can be a coward when dealing with his emotions, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.”

She hunched forward, keeping her eyes lowered. “Babs, I’m serious, I don’t want to talk about this.”

Before Barbara could insist, something seemed to catch her attention off screen. She turned towards it, and Stephanie heard the muffled sound of a door opening. A new voice came through, and Barbara smiled as Dick threw himself onto her bed, appearing on the background of the video.

He reached for the redhead without lifting his face from the pillows, making a grabby motion towards her.

“Always nice to see you, boy wonder,” Barbara said with a laugh, eyes shooting back to the camera, “but we aren’t exactly alone right now.”

Dick shot up instantly.

“Hey!” Stephanie piped up, amused by his widened eyes and frantic searching. “Didn’t expect to see you there!”

He focused on the screen. “Steph!” He shuffled into a sitting position, ignoring the muffled state of his hair and clothes. “How have you been?” He scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. “Sorry I haven’t called. Things have been busy.”

She thought back to what Jason and Cassandra had said, that Dick had been taking care of Gotham while Bruce turned his attention to Duke and Damian. Even with the success of the rehabilitation programs, being Batman was still an awfully arduous task, and it was clearly taking its toll on Dick.

He had always been social, the one who put aside anything if one of his friends needed him, and so Stephanie couldn’t imagine how much it must have hurt him to take a step back from his siblings. Since his short stint as Batman, Dick had started being much more understanding towards Bruce, but it had also reflected poorly on his relationships with the rest of the family.

Exhibit one: Tim.

“I’m fine. I’m surrounded by Waynes at the moment.” She waved at him dismissively. “How are you doing? From what I hear, Bruce’s being his usual demanding self.”

Dick grimaced, and Barbara put a hand on his shoulder. He leaned into the touch, expression softening until there was more sadness than irritation to the turn of his lips.

“As I’ve told all of you time and time again, Bruce’s not always right.” Barbara shot Stephanie a look. “And you boys have picked up way too many of his habits.”

“I know that better than most, Babs.” He gave the woman a small smile. “But he’s right about this. He might have dropped the ball with some of us, but he’s trying to be more present for Damian, Duke and Harper. It’s the right thing to do.”

Barbara frowned. “Not at your expense, it isn’t. You’re his son, too, and Bruce needs to remember that before I start locking him out of his own systems.”

Dick looked at her for a second, his smile turning more genuine. It made Stephanie a little uncomfortable, as if she was looking in through the window, peeking at a moment that should have belonged to those two alone.

At the same time, it was strangely reminiscent of the looks Tim had been giving her.

“You’d do that for me?” Dick prodded before Stephanie could explore the thought any further. “I knew you cared.”

“Of course I care.” Barbara sighed. “We all do.” She glanced towards Stephanie, straightening her shoulders and moving away from Dick’s personal space. “Bruce has more children than he can handle, and it’s not fair that he’s dumping the corporation on you.”

“And the stats are good, aren’t they?” Stephanie pushed her book to the side to keep it away from her fidgeting hands. “Cass and Jason wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Jason’s still there?” At the screen, Dick blinked, a little dumbfounded. “It’s been two months, already. He said he’d just make sure Damian and Tim were settled, then he was out.”

“And you believed him?” Barbara snickered. “Jason tries to put up a tough act, but he’s too much of a softie. Especially where it comes to Tim, now that they are friends.”

“Yeah, I guess you’d know better than I do,” he admitted. “Jason still won’t talk to me.”

“He’s just headstrong. I remember how you two were when younger, all puffed-up like peacocks.” Barbara shook her head at him. “Didn’t get much better as you grew up, I’m afraid.”

Stephanie laughed at the affront on Dick’s face.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed it’s a dick-measuring contest whenever they’re in the same room.” The microphone didn’t quite catch Dick’s huff, but she could see it in his expression. “Tim says it’s how Jason bonds.”

“I still can’t believe they’re close, now.” Dick scrunched up his brows. “It gets me every time, when Damian posts a picture of them together.”

She widened her eyes at him, shifting momentarily to Barbara, who was grimacing. “What do you mean, Damian is posting pictures of them?”

“On his Instragram,” he clarified with a grin. “You know how part of his cover is being really affectionate? Well, we set up this account for him where he has to gush about us. It’s great! I can’t believe you didn’t know about it!”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Dick thinks it’s a good way to make Damian more comfortable with telling us how he truly feels. As much as I hate to admit it, it seems to be working.”

“Oh my god, what’s his handle?” She sifted through the objects on the desk, trying to find her phone. “I need to see this!”

Dick laughed at her enthusiasm, while Barbara picked up her keyboard, going back to whatever she’d been doing before their conversation started.

“It’s verified, so you can just type out his name.” Dick beamed at her. “It’s how I keep tabs on Tim, really, since I can’t trust him to take care of himself. I don’t know if you remember, but he was getting sick more often, right before he left Gotham. Damian says he’s better now.”

She didn’t remember, but the timeline fit with what Damian had already told her. If Tim had just lost his spleen, it was understandable that he would get sick while his body adjusted. From what she’d read since that dinner, Tim had probably had to update his vaccinations and had only just stopped taking daily antibiotics after reaching adulthood.

But Dick didn’t know about that.

Stephanie looked up from her phone screen and caught Barbara’s gaze on her. Something about her sullenness made Stephanie think she, too, knew that Tim’s sickness wasn’t merely coincidental.

She lowered her eyes back to the phone.

“Is this…?” The most recent photo from Damian’s feed was from the previous day, when she had accompanied them to a business luncheon. It was ridiculously fancy, but the food had been good and she’d spent the entire time whispering with Tim about the other guests. She usually went with the absurd, but Tim was a pro at coming up with true but still ludicrous stories.

The post had two photos, actually. In the first, Stephanie was leaning against Tim’s shoulder while they laughed. She hadn’t realized how close they’d been, nor how the stripes on the tie she’d encouraged Tim to wear matched the deep blue of her dress.

The second photo was from five years previously, from a dinner she had attended alongside the Drakes. They were smiling in it and Tim was whispering something in her ear. She had no idea how Damian had gotten his hands on it, but the caption was what sent her heart into her throat.

_Timothy and Stephanie: 2013 & 2018\. History does repeat itself._

“Oh! I hadn’t seen that one!” Dick exclaimed, looking at his own phone. He struggled to keep from smiling. “You guys look good!”

“Jason’s never gonna let me live this down.” She rested a hand against her forehead. “My roommate will think we’re dating again. My friends will never believe me.”

“You have spent quite some time together,” Dick pointed out. He smiled, but there was a glint of curiosity to his eyes. “Are you sure you’re not dating?”

“I think she’s sure,” Barbara cut in, glaring at Dick.

He moved back from the camera with a sheepish smile, looking properly admonished. Stephanie bit back a sigh, knowing that it was in Dick's nature to meddle. He worried about them all, even when he couldn't find the time to contact them directly.

"You should come over, some time," she caught herself offering. "If you want to know how Tim is, you should come. I think he and Jason would appreciate it."

Barbara smiled down at her keyboard, pretending to be involved in her work and ignoring Dick as he ran a hand through his hair, still unsettled.

"I don't know if that's the best idea." He gritted his teeth. "Did you know Tim had been in Boston these last few years?" He huffed a laugh, but there was no humor in it. "I thought he was in Ukraine, but Jason knew."

"So you're giving up?" Stephanie raised her brows at him, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She, too, had been deceived about Tim's past. "That's not like you at all."

"That's what I've been saying," Barbara commented, not glancing away from her work.

Dick didn't raise his eyes from his hands.

As always, it was a bit perplexing to see him look vulnerable. Dick had the type of spirit that lifted them all, even when the odds didn't seem promising. Losing his siblings, however, as well as his old life, was something he still had to overcome.

Except for maybe Tim, he'd been the one to suffer the most with Bruce's death.

"They might not say it, Dick," Stephanie peeked over her shoulder at the photo stuck to her corkboard, "but they do miss it. They miss having a family."

Dick shifted in the bed, but his eyes were clear again. Stephanie wondered if she was getting to him, or if she had only reiterated what Barbara had already told him. She wouldn't put it past Barbara to have planned this; the woman could be alarmingly like Bruce when she wanted to.

"I'll think about it, Steph," Dick said, already getting up. He turned to Barbara. "I have a shift soon, but I'll make us dinner first." He dropped a kiss on top of her hair, before waving his goodbye.

Stephanie and Barbara exchanged pointed looks.

"You and Dick, huh?"

The redhead shrugged, eyes glinting with mischief. "I told you I understood it."

Stephanie couldn't help herself. She threw her head back in a cackle.

* * *

She recognized that this was a bad idea as soon as she heard the steps approaching the door.

It had been impulsive on her part to drive straight to Tim’s apartment, especially when she knew Damian wouldn’t be there to act as a buffer. She imagined the boy preferred not to be involved in their drama, but Stephanie could have done with his support.

“Stephanie?” Tim squinted at her from the gap he’d opened. He rested his forehead against the doorway, bleary-eyed and sleep-mussed. “Did we have plans?”

A low giggle escaped Stephanie’s throat as Tim moved out of the way to let her in. He was wearing sweatpants and an undershirt, and she couldn’t stop herself from watching the sliver of skin at his hipbones, where the shirt had ridden up in his sleep.

Tim yawned into his hand, oblivious to how dry her mouth had gotten.

“No, I just needed to see you.” She faltered. “Can we talk?”

Something in her tone must have alerted him that there was something wrong, because when Tim turned back to her his eyes were much clearer. He motioned towards the couch and went into the kitchen to grab some coffee while Stephanie made herself comfortable.

“Not that I don’t love seeing your face first thing in the morning,” Tim joked as he sat down, handing her a mug, “but I thought Saturdays were for sleeping in. I can remember you saying so at least a dozen times.”

Stephanie tried to ignore his flattery, but she felt her lips pull into a grimace, which Tim seemed to catch. He frowned, expression turning thoughtful as he waited for her to begin.

“What changed?” she settled on, after a moment of consideration.

He turned his head slightly to the side, studying her. “What do you mean?”

“Before you left, you could barely stand to be in the same room as me.” Stephanie pressed her hands against the cushions, focusing on their texture in order to overlook the frustrations that bustled inside her. “Things got better after you came back from the League, but then you started to ignore me. We weren’t fighting anymore, weren’t yelling, and it just made me feel like shit! Next thing I know, it’s three years later and you’re asking me out for coffee.”

Tim’s eyes shifted back to his hands. “A lot changed. I’ve told you this already, but I feel like I should say it again.” He sighed. “Back then, I was seventeen and mourning my best friends, my parents, Bruce… I didn’t know how to deal with all that loss.”

“But we were there, Tim.” Stephanie didn’t look at him, despite feeling his eyes back on her. “Even after you found out I was alive, you kept pushing me away. And suddenly we’re talking as if it was five years ago, but it’s not. I can’t flirt and laugh and want to touch you when I don’t know where you’ll run to next.”

“I’m sick of running, Steph.” He sounded tired, like he would back when he was Red Robin, with exhaustion dragging the syllables out. “It’s all I did back in Gotham. Run after Batman, then after Bruce. I’m done with that.”

“I thought you were done with me, too.”

Tim shook his head, letting out a humorless laugh. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Then why?” She clenched her jaw, trying to keep the knot on her throat from showing through her voice. “Why were you so cruel after I came back?”

“Why were _you_?” he replied, before running a hand across his face. The glasses fell to his lap, and Tim squinted at them. “I thought you were dead, Stephanie, and that I'd had a big part on getting you killed.”

Stephanie didn’t know how to respond to that. She could try to refute it, but the truth was that she had blamed Tim for it for some time. Even before she became Robin, he had been suspicious and overzealous and secretive. His immaturity hadn’t helped her relationship with Bruce.

Putting it all on him, however, was also immature of her. She had made her own mistakes and eventually paid for them.

“I don’t know why I did the things I did.” She picked up his glasses, then carefully pushed them onto Tim’s face. When she pulled back, he was staring straight at her. “Bruce was the closest thing I had to a parent. So I let him get away with more than I should have.”

Tim swallowed, nodding once.

“You were the girl I loved, who died. And then you came back.” He focused back on their untouched mugs. “I didn’t know how to deal with that, especially not in the middle of everything else that was happening. When you sided with Damian–”

“I didn’t side with Damian,” Stephanie bristled. “He needed help and he wasn’t getting any from you.”

“Can you really blame me for that, Steph?” He glared at the coffee table, unwilling to meet her eyes again. “I don’t want to fight, but that was how it felt then.”

There was a beat of silence between them.

“That night, when you called me right after Bruce’s death,” Stephanie stood up and walked towards a bookcase, blindly touching the titles, “you had been planning to do something very stupid.”

“Yeah.”

“What was it?”

“It was Shiva.” She held onto a shelf to stop her hands from shaking. “She’d threatened to kill me.”

Stephanie gave a disbelieving laugh. “Of course she did. ‘Cause you can’t have normal enemies. It’s Shiva and Ra’s Al Ghul and whatever other international assassins you haven’t been telling me about.”

“Steph, I’m sorry, okay?” There was an edge of annoyance to his tone. It was almost relieving to hear it, because at least he hadn’t retreated back into blankness. “Can you please sit back down?”

“And what would you have said, if I had picked up?” she insisted instead of replying, and Tim sighed.

“That I loved you. That I was sorry. That I forgave you.”

Stephanie whipped around to look at him. She was surprised by his honesty, but it was the intensity of his gaze that made her clench her teeth. He had always had the most enchanting eyes, she’d thought, even when she’d only been able to get a glimpse at them from behind the white lenses of his mask.

“Would any of that have been true?” she asked, when her voice no longer felt like it would betray her.

“I don’t know.” Tim shrugged. “There was a time when I thought I would never be able to put it all behind me, that I would look at you and the side of me that loved you would forever fight the side of me that hated you.”

She worked her jaw. “Me too.”

“I think that’s what changed,” he pondered. “After MIT, those days started to feel like a lifetime ago, and I started to remember the good things. When I saw you with your friends, I could only see Stephanie Brown, the girl outside of Spoiler or Batgirl.”

“God, Tim!” Stephanie threw her hands up. “You can’t just let these things go.”

“Why not?” He blinked at her.

“Because it wasn’t a lifetime ago!” she exploded. “I pretended I was dead! I followed Bruce’s stupid orders!” She screamed in frustration, running her hands through her hair. “You asked me how I became friends with Jason, and I guess part of it is because I get not being able to forgive yourself for the things you’ve done!”

“Isn’t that a bit self-centered, Steph? Trying to tell me what I can and can’t forgive? You and Jason really do have too much in common, sometimes,” he muttered under his breath.

“You’re still mad at me, Tim. Don’t try to pretend you’re not!” Stephanie knew she was raising her voice, but she couldn’t stop herself. The heat that rose up to her throat had been growing since that first day, two months ago, and only now did she recognize it as anger.

“Of course I am!” Tim bit back. “I’m mad at you for disappearing and for letting me think you were dead, even as my life fell apart around me! I’m mad that you and Dick didn’t have faith in me, despite how you were always asking me to have faith in you!” He’d gotten up too, moving towards the kitchen and away from her.

“So why are you trying to forgive me?” she demanded.

“Because I’m also in love with you!” Tim stopped his pacing, panting.

Stephanie had wanted to destabilize him, to break his cool and see the parts that Tim insisted on hiding, but this was more than she’d expected. She leaned against the bookcase at her back, feeling the force of the words as if they’d been a physical blow to her chest.

“You can’t, Tim,” she said, swallowing the reply she’d actually wanted to give.

His expression crumbled, but his voice grew indignant. “Why?”

Many answers flashed through her mind, but they were just excuses. Stephanie had created plenty after Tim left, to convince herself that his absence was not a wound. That if it was, then it would scar over. That it was better like this.

The truth was simpler, however.

She hadn’t been there when he needed her the most, and there was no coming back from it, but he hadn’t been there for her either.

“I know about Hong Kong, Tim.” She watched his eyes widen. “Damian told me about your spleen and your suicidal tendencies.” Stephanie crossed her arms, closing her hands over her arms in an attempt to keep herself grounded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

It was the wrong thing to say, or maybe the wrong way to say it. Just by looking at Tim, Stephanie could tell that their conversation was over. His eyes had hardened, a pool of dark blue so clear that it could only reflect back the light; she would have no more of him today.

“Why should I have told you anything?” He was immediately defensive. “Would you have cared? Running around in a costume that wasn’t yours, messing with a life that wasn’t yours. I – I wasn’t yours to manipulate, Stephanie. And I’m not yours now, for you to demand answers.”

She met his glare, infuriated.

“Why are you twisting everything I say? You always do this! You pull me into your life and then you start locking me out. I can’t know about this, I can’t know about that! Why?” She scoffed. “Because I’m too stupid to understand? Too impulsive?”

“I have a right to keep things to myself, dammit!” Tim growled. “You say I’m so much like Bruce, but it’s time for you to take a look in the mirror! You butt into my business and you change everything, until it’s not even safe for me to be in my own house. If you know so much, then do you know how much it hurt me to walk into the cave and find you, sparring with Damian, studying with Bruce? God!”

She felt shame well up inside her. “They were mine, too!”

“I’m not saying they weren’t!” He tugged at his hair. “I left, didn’t I?”

“That’s not what I wanted!”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want. You think I wanted to work with Ra’s back then?” Tim gesticulated wildly, complexion going red. “No, but I didn’t have anyone else to turn to, because the people who were supposed to be my friends thought I was crazy!”

“We were all going crazy, ok?” She scowled at him. “And doesn’t Bruce say there’s always another way, Tim?”

“There wasn’t!” he objected. “Do you think I didn’t think it through? I was almost killed, again and again. I was –” he choked on his words – “I was almost raped. If Cass hadn’t come when she did… But you don’t care.”

Stephanie was taken aback by his admission, but it didn’t stop the anger. “I care, okay? Of course I care! I care about you the most!” She took another step back, knocking against the shelves, and raised her arm to wipe at the tears that had started to fall down her cheeks.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” he shouted.

“Why didn’t you?” she shrieked back. “I was tortured, Tim. Black Mask carved his name into my skin, and when that wasn’t enough anymore, he brought out the nail gun. He kept saying I was lucky he had no interest in girls, but I didn’t feel lucky.” She gasped for breath. “And through all that, I still wanted to live!”

This quieted him down, but it wasn’t calm displayed in his features, it was coldness.

“I guess that makes you stronger than I was.” Tim crossed the room, opening the door. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Stephanie hesitated for a moment. She felt like leaving would only make this argument worse, but the truth was that she had nothing more to tell Tim. She had already said more than she’d intended, let the words spill out of her lips before she could really think them through.

Still, his frigidness infuriated her. She had finally opened up to him about Black Mask, and yet this was how he’d reacted.

The sound of the door slamming close followed her all the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this chapter is So close by Jon McLauglhin. Again, I shouldn't have posted this, because I just started writing the fifth chapter, but I was excited. I'm sorry for the ending, but this is gonna be happy, so no worries.
> 
> Please leave me some feedback. I especially don't know if I like Damian's characterization, but I wanted him to have grown up a little.


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